


moon and old stars

by kaermorons



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Daddy Kink, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Kink Exploration, Kink Negotiation, M/M, Praise Kink, Star Wars cursing, Virgin Din Djarin, god fucking damnit wolfie
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:42:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28037121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaermorons/pseuds/kaermorons
Summary: Din's losing it. Boba Fett knows what to do.Din continues to lose it. Daddy is just another part of his vocabulary he thought he would never understand.
Relationships: Din Djarin/Boba Fett
Comments: 180
Kudos: 942





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [badwolfbadwolf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/badwolfbadwolf/gifts).



> This is all Wolfie's fault. Thank you.
> 
> Also don't like. Roll up in the comments all blaster fire and brimstone cuz I don't have time for your bullshit if you stink. This is for us who look at the tags and go yes fucking please. If you aren't in that group I suggest this isn't the fic you're looking for. <3

He wasn’t going to do it. He wasn’t. He was practically forty cycles old and he _knew_ better. Here he was, without a damn starship, without the kid, bereft of enough credits to make a difference, and he was spiraling out of control due to the residual guilt and shame which had come with taking his helmet off at the refinery on Morak. He’d compromised himself, his Creed, his people.

And the damn Fett wasn’t talking to him, to top it off. That’s just _great._

It wasn’t much of a Way if you kept meandering vaguely off course, listing on just this side of heresy.

Cara and Fennec had gone off in search of food on some outpost near the Outer Rim, a few days’ travel behind Gideon, and therefore Grogu. Din was left alone in Slave I with Boba Fett, and he was practically crawling out of his skin.

He’d rehearsed the bad idea so many times in his head, but somewhere between his mind and his mouth the words changed from “Wanna go shoot something?” to “I need a distraction.”

The old bounty hunter was sitting at the console near the hyperdrive, sans helmet, as he was used to. Din’s hands were shaking in their gloves, but the gloves and his armor were sturdy enough to hide it from the common man’s eye.

Boba Fett was not a common man. He was a Mandalorian, if not by Creed then by race, and he knew exactly the deadly mix of poisons which had led Din to this point better than... _kriff,_ better than anyone else in this blasted galaxy.

His eyes, so level and sure, so calculating and sharp it felt like there wasn’t any beskar between them, regarded him and his request. Din hadn’t asked, he was past the point of asking. He was desperate to get his mind off of the vicious circle of imagining what the kid was going through. Fett stood and straightened his back.

Din wasn’t a slight man, by anyone’s definition. He was strong enough to wield and wear the armor, to make it this long as a guild bounty hunter, to survive the training and the trauma that came from just living in the wild galaxy. But Boba Fett was a clone, he was created to be the most powerful kriffing bastard this side of the stars, and he was engineered smarter, faster, and stronger. He had a hand’s length on him in height, and Din was eager to know what that would feel like, without the armor, without the boots, without—

But Fett hadn’t spoken yet, he hadn’t even given anything away that Din could overthink about. He was sweating all over the inside of his helmet, worse than when he first put one on as a teenager. He swallowed roughly, and the vocoder picked it up, a soft crackle putting his nervousness on display.

“Come with me.”

It was three words, which were more than enough of an order for Din’s head to swim, and he followed like Fett had said to. He was led to a berthing at the far edge of the ship. The matter of fact way Fett had interpreted his request for a distraction as “I’m taking you to bed” made him swoon a little on his feet. “I don’t lay with armor. You’ll have to take it off.”

“But—”

“If I wanted to lay with a droid, I’d lay with a droid. It comes off.”

Again, Din was brought to heel by three short words. And really, what was there left of himself that he could hold tight to and pretend was honorable? How much of himself had he given up in just the last few months? What part of him actually still fit, hidden behind buckles and clasps and plates and signets?

He forced himself not to think about it. His need was great. Back on Morak, he’d felt the same need take control, blurring the line in his head that was at one point, uncrossable. Now, his whole mind was blurred, and he felt the air in his helmet was hot and stifling. Piece by piece, the armor around him came off, and with it, his cares and self-respect. He was willing to debase himself for one petty distraction.

In for a credit, and all.

The chest plate acted as sort of a holding dish for the rest, keeping it nice and tidy and out of Fett’s way as he bared every part of himself. Fett watched with an unreadable expression as pale skin was uncovered, as cloth-covered elbows and socked feet revealed itself to the room. The door was shut, there was some semblance of safety here, but the recklessness with which Din stripped himself gave the old man something to worry about.

Finally, in just his soft skin-layer clothes, all that was left was the damned helmet. Din felt his lips wobbling beneath it, and set his jaw. _It’s just a distraction. It’s just enough to get me by. Then I can bottle the shame and find a way to repent for my actions. This is the Way._

The light in the room was dim, like Fett had known Din’s eyes needed to adjust. The helmet sat atop the rest of the armor with a soft _thud,_ finality in its tone. Din let out a shuddering breath, and his eyes went to the floor, his head with it. He’s worn the helmet so long that he was unused to peripheral vision when he had it.

“Look at me.” Three-word sentences were a favorite of Fett’s, so it seemed. “You are not of a Creed you can disappoint while in here. The only truth is that you are mine.”

Din’s eyes flashed up, and his jaw dropped. That strange cadence to his voice, the accent, it was unfamiliar enough to his ears that it set the stage for what came next. “Yours?” he croaked, almost flinching at the new acoustic quality his voice had.

“Mine.” Fett sat on the edge of his bed, and made no motion for Din to follow, so he remained standing. “You are unfamiliar with this kind of activity. Good. There’s nothing you can do, or have done, that will change how I treat you here. We will start small. You will follow my orders. If you are confused about something, you will ask. If something is wrong, you will say ‘beskar’ and we will stop. No one else is allowed to know about this. I will not speak of it, and neither will you. This will not follow outside of here unless we speak of it. Do you have any questions?”

_Millions._

“No.”

“Kneel here.” Fett pointed with a single, gnarled finger to a point on the ground by his feet. Din made a soft noise of resistance, but a firm look reminded him that he was to follow Fett’s orders. He slowly went to his knees, and walked forward on them, closer, to Fett’s side. He thought they were going to do this on the bed. “Get comfortable.”

He spoke like he’d rather be talking in a different language, but for Din he’d keep speaking in Common. Din adjusted his kneeling stance so his back wasn’t slouched. They often meditated in the covert and learned to stay very still despite discomfort, but Fett had told him to get comfortable, so he did, though once he’d found it, he began to fidget.

“Put your head here.” Fett patted his lap. Surely there was an easier way for him to do this…? Din wasn’t sure he’d be able to reach Fett’s cock in this position. “Your mind is jumping several steps ahead. We are not moving past this now. Relax your mind.”

“I asked for a distraction, not a guided meditation,” Din grumbled, resisting and testing the waters a little. Fett seemed quick to temper despite his glacial expressions, but in here, he took the little barb like Din hadn’t even said anything.

“You will get what you need, and nothing more unless you follow what it is I’m saying. Put your head here. I won’t repeat myself again.”

Din gently rested his head against Fett’s thigh. It was a strange sensation, to feel warmth there not brought by engine heat or the flash-burn of a sonic shower, or his own body heat trapped in the helmet. The fabric over his thigh was a rough canvas, but not too thick that it hid the warmth from the man wearing them.

“Good. That’s good.”

He nearly jumped out of his skin when Fett put a hand on his head, not grabbing, just resting. He took deep breaths and calmed his heart down.

He’d spent so many months taking a sharp blade to his hair, thinning it down as soon as it was long enough to curl. He didn’t like to meet his own eyes in the mirror as he worked, only looked at his face enough to do a cursory, impersonal shave and haircut, and only when absolutely necessary. He felt he owed it to the Creed that he didn’t indulge in time spent out of the helmet, in things like vanity and pride.

But now, with Fett’s hand on his head, and his head on his thigh, kneeling at his feet because he’d been told to, he wished he’d spent a bit more time making sure it was at least _even._ Insecurity and shame bubbled inside of him, and it made damn sure Din knew how unworthy he was of a signet, of the helmet, of the gifts given by his people. Through many years and lonely nights, even after he met the kid, he’d found himself in moments of physical pain, but never enough to make him cry like a child.

This simple act, it seemed, was enough.

It started slow, a prickling spark behind his eyes, a flash of radiant embarrassment on his cheeks. He swallowed past a lump in his throat. His vision blurred with tears, and they fell, uninhibited, from his eyes. If Fett noticed, he didn’t speak about it, and didn’t move his hand back. His thigh and his hand were the only two points in the galaxy that could tether Din back to himself, and he was holding on tightly to that sensation.

Those fingers curled into unevenly-cut hair, a gentle scritch against a sensitive scalp, and Din cried harder. Under the sounds of his gasps and silent, shuddering sobs, he heard humming. It wasn’t a song he recognized, but the tune became familiar the more Fett repeated it, in a deep register that matched his entire demeanor.

Din’s hands came to wrap around Fett’s calf, holding on hesitantly, but tighter once the song interrupted with a “Hm,” of assent. Now he had four points of tethering, and it was easier for Din to let the tears carry away his shame and injuries to his pride.

He didn’t know how long he was down there, knelt by Fett’s feet, but when he felt fine enough to look up, he was surprised to meet Fett’s eyes. He somehow knew Fett hadn’t looked away even once in the whole time Din had knelt. “You were very good for me,” Fett said, a soft quality to his voice that made Din’s breath catch. The hand on his head shifted and cupped the back of his neck, and Din’s eyes fluttered shut. How long had it been…? _Never,_ his mind said. _You’ve never felt like this._

“What was that song?” Din asked, his voice terribly hoarse and small.

“It’s an old one, so old time forgot the words but not the sound and story. It told a tale about an old star shooting across the galaxy, and when it sailed past a moon made of crystals so clear it looked like starlight, it stopped, pulled into orbit by a thing so beautiful it was helpless against the laws of the universe. My father used to sing it to me, and now I sing it to you.”

Din didn’t know what to make of that, but said, “That sounds like a nice story. Will you teach me the song?”

“I will. But not now. The others will be back soon. You may want to clean up.”

Din noticed the uncomfortable feeling of tears dried on his face, and felt the wave of self-consciousness return, though it was greatly subdued.

“There’s a shower on board.”

“Thank you.” Din kept his eyes down, gathering up his things again, his pieces.

“You’re welcome, any time you need it.”

“What if I don’t need it?” Din said, trying to cover his vulnerability with...something else.

“Then you don’t need it,” Fett said, calm as anything. He stood.

Sure enough, those five inches Fett had on him were made starkly apparent when Din stood in none of his armor. Certain men carried a metaphorical weight with them when they walked, and others carried an imagined height that let them look down on others. Boba Fett was bigger in both senses, but did not use his power to belittle or condescend at Din. He exuded a presence of comfort and safety, a peace that Din had thought inaccessible for himself for so very long.

He felt held, though they stood apart.

“I’ll just. Shower.” Din said, awkwardness filling his lungs.

As soon as he was in the small ‘fresher, he closed the hatch and wondered what in the kriff just happened.


	2. Chapter 2

Slave I wasn’t outfitted with the sonic shower the Razor Crest had. Fett kept a rather complicated-looking water shower on board, which had Din staring at it for several minutes in furrowed-brow confusion before he caught his expression in the mirror.

He hadn’t ever seen his face that red in his life. His eyes were puffy and bright, and his mouth stained a dark red with how hard he’d been trying to keep his sobs in, and if not in, silent. The right side of his face was creased, and matched the weave of Fett’s trousers.  _ Kriff. _ His eyes flashed down to the floor again and he got into the shower.

As soon as the water hit his back, he had to bite down on his fist to keep from moaning at the perfect water pressure and heat. Fett may have bummed it on Tattooine for years, but he certainly didn’t bum it on Slave I. Din could count on one hand the number of times he’d taken a water shower, and three of those times were freezing cold and pathetic. He wanted nothing more than to stay in this shower forever, but the galaxy was waiting out there, as was the kid.

A frown came over his face, and he felt the initial joy of the shower pass from him. He washed his hair with too-rough hands, letting the uneven locks fall into his eyes as he tried to get a grip on reality again. He’d just asked for a reprieve from all this, and he hadn’t even gotten off.

It was strange to think about, actually. He had gone in expecting nothing, then expecting sex, and now...his body had never felt like this before. He was all at once jittery and fatigued, and he couldn’t make sense of it.

Well. It’s not like he couldn’t take care of himself. He had been doing just that for decades, now. Before he could think twice on it, he wrapped his hand around his prick and gave a slow tug. He couldn’t help his mind drifting back to the moments before. Kriff, his knees were still a little red from how long he’d been kneeling. That sense of powerlessness, the submission that came from the act, Din had never thought he would be the kind of man to do that willingly.

He’d practically begged Fett to do it.

The thought of actually begging the stoic man for anything made his dick twitch in his hand, and he gave a small gasp. The fantasy unfolded itself like a many-paged text. Sensations, phantom now, of the heat beneath his cheek and the hand atop his head, came back to him in a flurry of feeling, each one more powerful than the last. Within a minute, he was tugging at himself in earnest, keeping his breathing steady even as his mind spiraled out of control.

_ “You were very good for me.” _

The praise, flooding his chest now, was the tipping point, and he felt the skin on his lip give way to his teeth, the taste of blood spilling across his tongue as he spilled in his hand, silent and controlled.

He blinked his eyes again, and things were clear once more.

_ Kriff. _

* * *

Dressed and securely strapped in his beskar, Din was only a little jittery. He retreated to eat by himself, instead of with the others. That’s twice in a day he’s had to take his helmet off, prompted by little more than his body’s needs.

He also felt all of their eyes on him, like they knew what he’d done. Din ate as fast as he could and returned, comfortable back behind the helmet once more. The four-man crew geared the ship up for travel, and he did what he could. He could hardly look at Fett as it was.

Fett wasn’t having any of that.

Within the first three minutes that they had reached lightspeed, Din was being dragged by the back of his helmet back to the berthing he was avoiding thinking of. He made a surprised noise. Fennec and Cara didn’t look surprised. When the door  _ sssnick _ ed shut behind them, he was tossed back onto the bed with a bounce. Unarmed, and in close quarters, Din’s heartrate started ratcheting up. Fett stood before the hatch, arms crossed.

“Was that necessary?” Din shouted.

“If you are going to continue acting like a shamed, shy child, then I shall treat you like it.”

Din gawked from beneath the helmet. He wished he had a telemetry scanner for  _ what the kriff to do in this situation. _ There was no such thing. “I was not acting—”

“You are practically shouting your shame. What was it I told you about being in here.”

_ “You are not of a Creed you can disappoint while in here. The only truth is that you are mine.” _

He made a soft noise and tried to sit up, but quick as a flash, Fett had his hand pressed against the middle of Din’s armor, looming over him. The weight itself stilled Din’s struggling movements. He was still breathing hard, and his chin hurt a little from the helmet’s chafing as he was dragged.

“Will you tell me why you feel shame?”

“We’re Mandalorians. You should know why.” His voice almost didn’t pick up on the vocoder, it was so soft.

“You needed something, I provided. There is no shame in needing help. Mandalorians often work together.”

“In the old times, perhaps. Not when there’s so little of us that the hunted Jedi outnumber us.”

Fett’s face took a considering twist to it. “Then think not of yourself as a Mandalorian. Not in here, and not with me. What we do in here should not be colored any different in your mind when you are somewhere else to think of it.”

“What?”  _ Not as a Mandalorian? Was he insane? _

“I know you heard me the first time.”

“We shouldn’t have ever done this,” Din said, shifting a little on the bed. It’d been so long since he’d had something soft beneath him, and the hard body above him played nicely against that comfort.

“Why?”

“It’s—”

“Shameful?” Fett said, quirking an eyebrow upward. Din knew the objection was weak. “Plenty of Mandalorians have indulged and continue to indulge in their fantasies and the very human needs of their bodies. In fact, you did in the ‘fresher a few hours ago. Yet you’re ashamed of wanting this, wanting me.”

Din could not say a single thing. It was like Fett had taken the words out of his mind. He swallowed roughly. “What am I supposed to do?” he said, at long last.

“In here, as I say. Would you like it to continue past the door?”

Din shook his head. “N-not with the others around.” A tension eased in his chest that he hadn’t noticed was there. He had acknowledged that what had happened, had happened, and had helped gain him some clarity, even if just for a few hours.  _ Kriff, _ he’s going to need to be on his game for when they got to Gideon’s cruiser.

Fett only nodded. “We will be in hyperspace for awhile yet. They will alert us if something needs my attention. For now, you need my attention.”

He spoke with weight and truth behind his words, and Din’s face burned at the feeling.

“Do you wish to stay? You know my rules and the conditions for if you say yes.”

Din thought it over in his head. He would not be met with shame nor judgment from Fett, not in here. It was a good deal, and no one need know.

So he nodded.

And took off his helmet.

Fett helped set the rest of the armor aside, until he was back to the clothes he was wearing when he’d kneeled before. Din remained reclined on the bed, unsure of what to do next. He looked to Fett for guidance, and was given it.

“Have you ever sucked cock?” Fett asked. At Din’s sputtered mess of a response, that eyebrow quirked up again. He didn’t follow it up with any other questions regarding Din’s experience (or lack thereof). “Would you like to learn?”

The way he  _ phrased _ it. Din’s mouth watered at the thought, and his eyes flicked to the fly on Fett’s trousers. He nodded again, mute with desire.

Fett simply climbed onto his bed, leaning against the far bulkhead, and took himself out. Din almost  _ hid _ from the sight, but was urged forward by a hand on his head, guiding, leading, protecting.

Teaching.

Eyes wide, Din let himself be led between Fett’s legs, and he rested up on his elbows to put himself above the task at hand.

“Use just your tongue, for now.” Fett’s hand pressed down a little, leaving Din with the option to follow orders or deflect his path to the side if he’d changed his mind. His tongue, pink and a little nervous, poked out past his lips to lick at the skin just under the fat head.

He tasted of skin and slightly of sweat, but it was obvious Fett bathed often, and had the means to do so. He licked again, bolder now, and the difference in texture from the underside of Fett’s cockhead and the rest of his length made Din’s mind buzz in excitement.

“There you go.  _ Jate, jate.”  _ Stars, he was speaking Mando’a. Din’s entire  _ soul _ stood up at attention.

“Oh,  _ kriff,” _ he whimpered, his lips catching against Fett’s prick in a facsimile of a kiss. His eager body followed the notion, pressing a kiss to the underside of the head and pressing his tongue experimentally along the thick vein. He could feel Fett’s pulse through this.

“You want to be good for me,  _ ad’ika?” _ Din’s head swirled with want. He must have gone cross-eyed. He nodded, the slightly-damp head smearing over his cheek a little. Curious, Din leaned down and licked against the slit, and pulled back a little at the taste. He went in again, taking another lick, following with his lips. He hadn’t even kissed the man, and he was kissing at his prick like a priest at an altar. “That’s it. Go ahead and suck on just the tip for me. Keep using your tongue. Don’t wanna use your teeth for this.”

It seemed like common sense, but Din almost jolted at the thought that he would try and do anything like that to him. Brown eyes flicked up to Fett’s, and he nodded his understanding. Din pressed another sloppy kiss to the head, bobbing in a rhythm that soothed him dizzyingly fast. Another whimper left the back of his throat, and the hand on his head scritched at his scalp with care. He’d been rough with himself in the ‘fresher, earlier. This gentleness was nothing he’d ever felt before.

“Go on, go a little deeper. Not too much. Just a little— _ good, _ so good for me.”

Din was eager to please him, all the troubles and worries which had plagued him now far, far away. The soft, deep voice spurred him on faster and deeper. The hand in his hair pulled a little, not in scolding, but reminding him to ease up.

“Not a race, little one.”

Din shivered, and he practically gasped around Fett’s cock.

“No one’s ever treated you like this before, have they? What a shame. You look so beautiful like this, just for me, just mine.”

“Yours,” Din gasped, a little slurred with the dick in his mouth.

“Go ahead and put your hand where mine is. Just to keep it steady.” Din brought his shaking hand up to where Fett’s scarred one was wrapped in a loose hold around the base. He never considered his hands to be slender or graceful, but Fett’s description of him,  _ little one, _ was certainly true when comparing the two of them. Din held onto him, and had to scoot up a little more, his unoccupied hand planting itself in the sheets beside Fett’s hip before pulling back. Fett arranged him how he wanted, all his limbs curled in the circle of his bowed legs. A sense of calm and safety came over him, and he shivered again, feeling himself harden in his trousers.

“I—” Din looked up, a question in his eyes. “Am I doing it right?”

“You’re doing so well for me, little one. I promise. Just keep doing what feels good. You have good instincts. Show them off for me.”

Din set to work.

He knew it’d be a stretch if he took any more in his mouth, and felt comfortable just suckling at the tip, getting that strange taste right from the source. Almost on its own, his hand started to stroke at the base, just little squeezes and pulls which in turn pulled a low, pleased noise out of Fett.

Without pulling off, Din looked up at him. The hand on his head was now petting him, a gentle affection that matched the open-mouthed expression on Fett’s face. He licked at the underside of Fett’s cock, just letting his tongue catch on the edge of the crown as he went. His tongue was going to be tired from this, he knew. It was worth it to see the expression change from awe to tight and twisted in pleasure.

Then Din pushed himself down deeper. His lips stretched, but the punched-out noise Fett made had him doing it again and again, bobbing his head eagerly, wanting more, taking more until he gagged, sputtering a little. He sat back, eyes flicking back up to see if he’d done something wrong. Fett let out a shuddering breath. “Happens,” Fett said between pants. “You’re still doing very good for me,  _ ad’ika. _ Go on, try again.”

“Yes, d—” Din froze up all over, and swallowed nervously, mute once more.

“That happens too. Call me what you like, I promise I won’t mind. Say it for me. Try it out loud.”

“It was just an—”

“I don’t think I was asking.” Fett’s fingers twisted in his hair, curled wildly from not getting to dry just right.

“Yes...daddy.” Now Din felt that same punch to the gut, pleasure and some white-hot, twisting, bladed  _ contentment _ pulsing through his veins. He pressed his face into the patch of bare skin showing at the top of Fett’s thigh, and the hand on his head moved to the back of his neck.

A soft squeeze. “Very good, my boy.”

Tears sprung to Din’s eyes again, and he looked up. He must have been a pitiful sight, but in Fett’s eyes, his submission and humility were beautiful, almost incandescent and radiant on its own.

Din’s cheeks were a ruddy red, and his lips slightly swollen from so much work with his mouth.

“That’s my good boy,” Fett said again. “You wanna keep going for Daddy?”

“Yes, please,” Din rasped, almost bowing his head, before a finger lifted his face by the chin.

“You’ve been very good for me. Why don’t you come up here and get your reward?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So uh yeah :D


	3. Chapter 3

_ Reward? _

“You think you don’t deserve a reward?” Fett asked, curious.

Din shook his head, but spoke his confusion. “I wasn’t aware that was...part of this.”

“Anything you like can be part of this,” Fett said calmly. “Would you rather be punished for a job well done?”

“I’m not even…” Din gestured at Fett’s prick, still an almost angry-red, slick with spit. “You’re not…”

“You’ve been good, is all that matters to me. I want you to know that.”

Din ducked his head, shy from the praise, the talk of rewards, and... _ punishment. _ Just the idea had him shivering in anticipation, wanting to know what the end of Fett’s tether looked like. Surely the man’s fuse wasn’t  _ that _ long. But…

“I want to finish the job first. You told me—”

“I know what I told you.” Fett’s hand came back to his head from the back of his neck. “You want to make me come for you?”

“Yes,” Din whispered. He’d never been more sure of anything, but it was still a bit of a thrill to acknowledge it.

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, daddy.” It was becoming easier for Din to say it, to think it, since he’d first stumbled over the word at the beginning of all this.

“That’s my good boy.” Din cut off the whine building in his throat by swallowing Fett’s cock back down again, eager to please him, to win his approval and feel like he’d earned it. “You want me to finish in your mouth or on your face?”

Din moaned around the thick length in his mouth, eyes rolling back again with a helpless shift of his hips to accompany it. He pulled off to rasp, “You choose,” while still pumping Fett’s dick in his hand.

“On your face, then. I want to see you marked as mine, I want you to feel it every time you look in the mirror. I want you to give yourself over to the need and let me mark you up how I want. Because good boys know who they belong to, don’t they?”

Din moaned again, and nodded, still sucking down more than he had before. It was becoming easier to do, his mouth getting used to the stretch, the intrusion, the taste, the texture. It was almost trance-like, with its rhythm and repetitive movements. He took his time, though, knowing Fett would want this drawn out, knowing it was his first time. It gave him the chance to think about what it would feel like when Fett came. If his prick is this hot now, how hot would his come be, all over his face?

He moved faster, spurred at the thought of being told how good he was again. It was why he’d even said yes to this second time, wasn’t it? He was helpless under Fett’s words and watch, and he loved the feeling that came with it.

No matter what he did here, if he followed the rules, no matter what, he still belonged to Fett, and that was all that mattered. Something clicked in Din’s brain, like a switch being thrown on a faraway wall, and a tingly, heavy feeling draped over him, like few dozen blankets at once. He whimpered and felt his support arm wobble, ready to give out.

_ “Jate, ad’ika. Ja—!” _

Fett held him up in one hand, stroking off his prick in the other. He groaned again, still cursing in Mando’a, as he came. The first splash against the side of Din’s cheek hit him almost like an afterthought. He made a soft noise and his mouth fell open, slack and wanting. Another spurt of come, hot as sin, landed across his mouth, some getting in his mouth. He found he didn’t mind the taste, or if he did, he was in too subdued a mindset to really know. Fett smeared the last of his release across Din’s other cheek, marking him up just as promised.

Din, as an effect of never taking his helmet off and only really caring about his face when he absolutely had to, had fairly sensitive skin, and couldn’t  _ not _ think about the spunk on him. It was the same effect as a hand around his throat. He knew he was  _ fucked, _ and there was nowhere else he wanted to be but this moment.

He darted his tongue out to lap up a little more of the come on his lip, a sight which made Fett practically purr. The hand on his face shifted, a thumb wiping off the rest of the come on one cheek and feeding it to the boy. Din dutifully cleaned the digit in his mouth, sucking softly and leaning into the touch. Fett did the same for the other side.

Din finally collapsed onto the bed, arms giving out at long last. His head rested on Fett’s thigh, how it had not a few hours earlier, though that context was incredibly different than how they were now.

Everything about Din’s life was incredibly different now.

He made a gentle noise in the back of his throat, frowning at the soreness in his mouth and tongue. “Rest easy,  _ ad’ika.” _ The hand returned to his hair, gently petting him. “Is there something you’d like as reward?”

“I don’t know what to ask for,” Din said honestly. “Forgiveness? I was acting cold, like you said.”

“You need not ask for that here, my boy. There’s no—”

“If not in here, then out there. Forgiveness for the shame I’ve brought to our people. The dishonor.” Din wasn’t usually this mopey, but his emotions were keyed up and mercurial. “There is no repentance for what I’ve done, the shame I’ve brought.”

“There’s no defined rules for sinners, either.” Fett frowned down at the man. “Creeds are different from man to man.”

“Honor and dishonor need no writing down for me to know what it means.” And Din felt a lot of it in the last several days. What was it Mayfeld said?  _ Seems to me like your rules start to change when you get desperate. _ That’s not the Way he was raised with.

“We are Mandalorian. We exist in the gray area because we are righteous and downright cruel at times but we finish the job because we gave our word. Any honor you bring is brought. And it is not something to be lost.”

“I broke the tenet on—“

“Tenets for a creed with no route of forgiveness or nuance to them are  _ flawed. _ Not evil by nature, but still. Flawed.” Fett was not going to let Din talk himself in circles about philosophy and logic, which would have rankled him outside of this room, but something told Din that he was silencing the topic out of genuine care for how Din felt. “Do you know the difference between a distraction and a solution?”

“They’re completely different, if you’re trying to make a point about nuance.”

“Then know what it is you’re asking for. What’s required in a distraction is different than what is required in a solution. Both of which are options I have on the table, but you will have to make that choice,  _ ad’ika.” _

Din’s breath caught in his throat, how it did every time Fett used the endearment. It was a bit heavier now, though. “What is the solution, then?”

“Until you get your footing back, when you aren’t spiraling without purpose and drowning in shame, you listen to me, you follow me, you take my lead. I am not a man used to luxury, but I am used to being alone in the galaxy.”

“And when your debt to me is repaid?” Din asked, thinking it all sounded a bit too good to be true.

“Then we will renegotiate. Until then, you need straightening out of the lines someone’s crossed in your head.” He followed his words with another slow pass of his hand over Din’s hair. “Come up here. You might feel better.”

“I’m fine.”

Fett shot him another look, one that echoed  _ don’t think I was asking. _ Din crawled up, unsure of where he was wanted until Fett put him in his lap, curled up with his legs all tangled together to the side. His head was gently guided to the crook of Fett’s neck, and for some reason, it felt more comforting than Din had anticipated. He breathed Fett’s scent in, just that skin smell and the general scent of Slave I, but it was enough for Din to be caught off-guard when a hand went to the fly of his pants.

“What are you doing?” Din asked, heartrate jacking up again.

“Don’t think you’re going to get out of a reward just because you made those eyes at me.” It was a little insane, Din thought, that he was wording the promise of a reward as if it was something Din was avoiding.

Was he?

“Okay,” Din said, shifting a little. He’d never...done this with another person. In the times he’d managed to get a hand on himself, it wasn’t to any fantasy of writhing bodies or hot skin. Embarrassingly, some of his fantasies had played out a little something like this:

_ He’d be safe, first of all. The how wasn’t important, nor was the where. Din would know he was secure enough to let his guard down and indulge in a few minutes of pleasure, something to numb the edge of tragedy that had its arrowhead aimed at Din’s heart. Before he did something too dumb like think about it too hard, he’d move on to the rest of his fantasy. Unseen hands, on an unknown person, would undress him and pet down his body. Checking for injuries, in an almost clinical manner, if it weren’t for the lingering touches to the broad scars and freckles that never really seemed to go away. _

_ The hands would curl around his bare waist, and he would be lifted - really. He’d be lifted up and brought higher, held aloft, like even gravity couldn’t touch him. Din would have his back against some cloud or something - didn’t matter. In no part of his fantasies did he expect a sense of reality, because this was always something he could never have. Then those hands would take their time, taking him apart and touching him in the secret places he’d only dared to caress in his most careless moments. It would coalesce into a climax, spilling into his hand with a strangled moan, but it was always, always over too soon. _

Fett moved like he had all the time in the world with Din, moving his pants down to his knees. Din groaned into his neck at the feeling. He’d been hard this whole time, but was flagging a little when he’d started questioning his own honor. Fett’s determined grasp around his prick dispelled that whole notion, though, and most other thoughts Din still had hanging on in his brain. He whined a little at the feeling. He couldn’t ever get into the feeling of being touched by his own hands, which was probably why he reacted so desperately to kneeling and being pet earlier. Fett’s hands were weathered and calloused from ship repair, blaster pistols, and hard life, yet every touch he gave Din was with a reverent sweetness that brought a flutter to Din’s chest.

The hand on his back, keeping him upright, left for a moment, and reached to the side. Fett opened something one-handed, and Din almost jolted at the feeling of slick wetness around his cock. He gave a choked-off gasp and looked. Fett had poured some kind of lube, smelling faintly of cloves and leather. It made the glide of his hand that much easier, and allowed him to add more pressure in his grip. Din’s hips stuttered helplessly, his cock already leaking at the feeling. He wouldn’t last long.

“Come on,  _ ad’ika, _ just let me make you feel good. You’ve been so good for me, haven’t you?” Fett rumbled in his ear.

“Daddy!” Din choked, tensing all over, and jerking in his arms as he spilled into Fett’s hand. He heard some whining noise, and realized belatedly that it was him making the noise. He choked on another moan, aftershocks of pleasure breaking through his nerves like a sledgehammer to glass. He shook apart in Fett’s arms, until his breathing evened out and he melted, boneless, into the embrace.

“Good boy, that’s my good boy. Come for daddy. That’s it.” Fett wiped his hand on the bedsheet, and cleaned off Din’s cock as well as possible before turning them to the side. “Just close your eyes, and rest for me. I’ll take care of you and keep you safe.”

“Th’nk you, daddy.  _ Vor’e. Vor’e.” _

_ “Draar entye.” _

Like that, curled together, Din slept for the first time since the kid had been taken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando'a translations (can we get David Peterson on this PLEASE)
> 
> jate - good  
> ad'ika - kid  
> vor'e - thank you; shortened form of "vor entye", literally "I accept a debt"  
> draar entye - never a debt. (they had no translation for you're welcome)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There’s no spoilers for the season 2 finale in here. I’ll let y’all know when there is.
> 
> Content warning for injuries and medical treatments

It was a setup.

Fennec had picked up a coded Imperial signal that mentioned a location and the blood-chilling phrase “terminal location of the asset.”

They managed to splice a little into the feed before they moved out of back-range, but they had something they didn’t before, and in the moment of panicked uncertainty, the four agreed to steer Slave I there.

It was a moon of Lothal, and mostly made up of vast colonies of feral Loth-cats. The tourism industry on Lothal had been branching out to the creepy little fuckers, but Din seemed to like them, carefully side-stepping tails and paws and not-so-subtly petting one when he “dropped something” while passing by. Cara and Fennec said nothing, and Fett just kept watch while Din allowed himself this.

When they’d come out of hyperspace and woken from their nap, Din had been shy. Fett had expected this, but didn’t fault him. Din had a few questions, just to clarify things, spoken in a raspy voice that meant he hadn’t recovered entirely from blowing Fett just a few hours prior. He was calm after the questions were answered, and no longer felt on the back foot.

The moment he had his beskar back on, Din had said, “Don’t you dare try to drag me by my helmet again.”

Fett laughed, loud and amused. “Don’t give me a reason to, then.”

Okay, that was fair.

When they cut through a dense forest to the Imperial facility they located on the trackers, something uneasy crept into Din’s gut. He was sure the others felt it too, though none of them spoke in the dense silence, no one wanting to put a name to the dark feeling.

The facility looked well-disguised. There were no patrols skulking around, all the ships looked like they’d been deserted after the Empire fell, it was a ghost town.

Cara took a step toward the fence line.

Din noticed it through a thermal sensor - a tripwire. “No!” He shouted, surging forward to pull Cara back. She stumbled, caught off guard, and Din’s center of gravity wobbled on one foot before he fell backwards.

Instantly, he was swept up in to the trees in a net of wire, connected at the cross-points by small discs. He thrashed against the trap, while the others below shouted for him. He grunted and tried to get at his knife, something to pull him free, cut an opening, anything. The others were saying something but his pounding heart was too loud in his ears for him to understand.

The only thing he could understand was that this had been a trap. The kid was still out there, and they were chasing smoke. He was never going to get his kid back, never going to hold him or make him laugh. It made his thrashing that much more frantic.

And then the beskar gauntlet clicked against one of the discs.

Electric shocks, powerful and terrible, met between the plates of beskar. This trap had been laid for _him._ He heard himself screaming at the top of his lungs, his helmet connecting with one of the discs and doubling—no, _tripling_ the pain. He felt his muscles spasm down his neck, shoulders, spine. He thought he could feel it arc between his fingertips. The display on his helmet was fried, all he could see was just that terrible blue light and the tunneling darkness with it.

Then.

There was green.

And Din was falling.

Idly, he felt himself caught, but the rest of his limbs were still lightly sparking and twitching. He’d at least stopped screaming, but the blood gushing down his chin told him he must have bitten some part of his mouth - his cheeks, his lips, his tongue. It was true that the body didn’t remember pain, and Din felt this, and the weight of his failure, in its entirety.

Whoever it was that carried him through the air set him on the forest floor some space away. The plates of beskar were ripped from him, releasing him from any remnant static. Footsteps approached, running. His rescuer barked, “TURN AWAY,” before Din’s helmet was pulled off.

Even the dimmed light through the boughs was too bright, and Din closed his eyes to it. “I know, I know, where’s it hurt?”

“Everywhere,” Din sobbed out, hands clenching and unclenching to distract himself. His breath was coming in fast, shallow pants, and he knew he’d pass out if he didn’t stop.

Warm, calloused hands touched his face, wiped away blood from his ears and nose and mouth, tugged his lips and mouth open to look inside. Fingers walked over his body, just a little too rough, poking where he was hurt.

It was like his soft and secret fantasy had been poisoned and laid bare at his feet to die. Din couldn’t help the sob that came to his throat. “Shh, shh, I’ve got you. Gotta get you back to the ship. Here.”

“Helmet…” Din moaned as he was picked up again, arms behind his back and under his knees. 

“Shorted out, still sparking. We’ll sort it out. Gotta get you checked.” His head was hidden carefully by the frayed fabric of Din’s cape. The reduction in light and the familiar weave over his face calmed him greatly, and he heard the sound of beskar being stacked on itself. “Don’t you forget a single piece,” his rescuer said, not to Din but to the others there. “I’m flying on ahead. When you get in, get us off of this kriffing planet as fast as possible.”

He was barely finished speaking before he was back up in the air, the lift of the jet pack just a little whiny at the extra weight. Din clutched at what he could with his useless, spasming arms, and tried steadying his breathing.

“Almost there, _jat’ika.”_

Oh.

_Oh._

Boba Fett had saved his life. Again. And he was calling him things in Mando’a. Again. Emotions surged through Din’s blood like the shocks had before, but there was nowhere to ground his feelings to. He pressed his face to the chest plate, and just held on. They landed in a run, Fett rushing up the entrance to get Din laid out somewhere for triage.

The familiar shape of Fett’s berthing came into Din’s bleary view. Fett had a whole medbay onboard, why not there? The answer came to him as Fett tore the rest of Din’s armor off, including the cape.

Din lay bare on the sheets, burns from the edges of the beskar plates seared through his clothes and into his skin. He wouldn’t be able to stay in the medbay if Cara and Fennec were coming; Din didn’t know if he cared.

He had failed the kid, again. First at that stupid temple, and again here, not seeing the forest for the traps. How many more times could he fuck this whole thing up before the kid was lost to him forever? In the few seconds between Fett setting him down in bed and when he’d returned to bring what looked like half the medbay, Din had broken.

He’d been alone in his entire fucking life. He’d been chasing ghosts of affection wherever he could since becoming a foundling, and the kid was the first real _right_ thing he had in his life. Due to his own stupid incompetence, he’d lost that one good thing, that he’d been trusted with. Clan of two. The kid didn’t deserve that.

The kid didn’t deserve _Din._

“Hey, hey hey hey. What’d I miss.” Fett sealed the door, confident he’d grabbed enough supplies and that the others would do as told. He came onto the bed with Din, hovering over him, still in all his armor and weaponry, Din helpless as he’s never been.

Din could only shake his head and shudder through his tears. He didn’t see Fett’s face tighten in sadness, but he felt a cool sting of bacta spray along his arm, over his chest, his thigh. His fingertips were an angry purple, so Fett took his time there. “Gotta jab you.”

Din made no protest, but gasped sharply when his body was turned over. A hypo pressed into the meat of his shoulder, and the bacta spread an unnatural numbness to the abused muscle. More bacta and burn patches were applied to his back before he was turned over again. He was still a bit bleary from the pain, what it’d taken out of him.

Fett patched him up good, efficient and thorough as he would’ve been on himself. There was no use in denying injury, to him. He only had one of himself, despite there being hundreds of thousands of himself in the past, technically. He couldn’t get that legendary status as _the_ Boba Fett without learning to be self-sufficient, either. Din was rolled onto his back, eyes still glazed over in pain.

This, Fett knew, could not be fixed by a bacta hypo. His heart lurched when the ship started to move, but remembered it was just Fennec and Cara. “How many systems we putting between here and ourselves?” A voice crackled through the intercom.

“Got a safehouse in the Hosnian system,” Fett said into the receiver.

“For real? You in the Core Worlds?”

“It’s not uncommon. Tell the ship to go to Point 4B.”

“How’s Mando?” Cara’s voice.

“Some burns. Might be a bit. We have what we need.” Din met Fett’s eyes at that. “You two handle yourselves.”

“Always do.” The comm cut off, and Fett locked its volume down. Din watched him with a wary look. He was completely bare while Fett was still mostly covered, but with the bacta in his blood, the boiling sensation receding from his brain, and the heartbreak still clear as day, Din couldn’t care.

Fett still stripped off his armor methodically, and didn’t speak. When he was down to a pair of skin-layers, he came up on the bed with a few more supplies. “You’re a biter,” he said, putting Din’s head in his lap. Din told himself he didn’t deserve to enjoy it, but from the first gentle touch of the damp cloth to the drying blood on his face, he melted.

“I don’t try to be,” Din said. A cut (bite) on his lip got some balm, and the bridge of his nose where it’d jammed against the fizzling beskar helmet.

A hand pet through his hair. He was sure it looked absolutely crazy, what with being electrocuted and the general insanity it already was. Din almost shook it off.

“Almost done, then you can rest.”

“Gotta find the kid,” Din said. “Can’t be caught off-guard like that again.” He tried to sit, but a firm hand at his neck, ready to pinch that bundle of nerves every Mandalorian knew about, made him freeze, and his breath with it.

“You are going to rest.” It was slowly-said and serious, and Din felt heady just from the order.

“But I failed.”

“We all failed. You’re just the one who had to pay for it. _Jat’ika,”_ Fett said, and Din shivered. “Let me take care of you.”

Din turned his face, pressing it into Fett’s thigh again. Would be he able to relax? Allow this _distraction?_ No, what was it Fett had called it?

A solution.

“Just til I’m better?”

“We’ll cross that bridge later.”

It was still a very long time before Din spoke, though Fett knew every moment was spent turning over the thoughts in his head like it was an old stone on a riverbank. Over and over, finding the best angle out of all the others.

“Okay,” Din whispered. “Okay, daddy.” Those fingers surged back into his hair, and may as well have been digging into his heart and soul. Din whimpered, and tried to relax his body some. “What do you want me to do?”

Fett stilled a little, thinking. They couldn’t get up to much physical activity, unfortunately, but Fett knew if he played his cards right, his boy wouldn’t be so wound up by the time he recovered. Maybe he’d be wound up in a different way. 

And then they’d have some real fun.

“I don’t want you to leave this room. Better yet, this bed. If you need something you ask. If you want something you ask. Are you cold?” It had been raining on the Lothal moon.

Din almost shook his head no, but reconsidered, focusing on his body instead of his failures and shame. He was cold.

“Yes.”

“Why don’t you come up here with me, then. I can warm you up better than a blanket can.” Fett helped him into the position he wanted, curled on his side and facing Fett. He was right, of course. The warmth bled into his bones almost instantly, one of Fett’s hands stroking up and down his back while the other stayed in his hair. “That’s better, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Din breathed. This close, he could feel the rumble of his voice through his chest. “Yes, daddy.”

Fett gave an amused huff and leaned down, pressing a kiss to Din’s forehead. At the sharp inhale he gave, Fett would have assumed he had touched on a wound Din hadn’t disclosed, but the arch in his spine and the rapid pulse against his thumb told Fett all he needed to know.

“You like when daddy gives you kisses?” Fett asked, voice dropping low.

Din’s wide eyes met his from below, full of emotion and curiosity. He gave a small nod.

“Have you ever been kissed before?”

A blush. A shake of the head.

“Do you want to be kissed? You have quite the pretty mouth for it.”

A deeper blush. Din hid in the crook of Fett’s neck for a bit while he continued to stroke his back.

Then, a voice.

“Yes, please.”

Fett wasted no time, moving his head out from his hiding spot and kissing from his forehead to his temples to his cheeks, to the tip of his nose, which made Din actually giggle and grin a bit. It was a beautiful sound, and a beautiful smile, two things Fett didn’t think he could go another second without indulging.

The kiss was soft and not as deep as Fett would have liked, but it made Din whimper into his mouth all the same, soft and hungry for more. Fett kept kissing him, over and over until he got the hang of it. We’re they standing, Din would have swooned, knees buckled like a newborn foal.

“There we are,” Fett said, pulling away with reluctance. Din was kind of wrecked, honestly. Fett’s hands had done a number on his hair, and he must have been extremely thorough in his job, because Din’s lips were swollen into a beautiful pout. “Did you like that, _jat’ika?”_

Din’s eyes fluttered shut at the name. Fett already knew how much Din liked it, but there was something else to be said about the little thrill he got when Din said, “Yes, daddy, I did.”

No, Din wasn’t going to leave this bed for awhile yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando’a translations
> 
> Jat’ika - sweet one, little one
> 
> *you won’t find this in any online dictionary. I mashed up ‘jate’ (good) and the diminutive ‘-‘ika’ (little, small, sweet) to make this word as an endearment.
> 
> Conlangs were meant to be bastardized for daddy kink fics


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for trope-typical punishments (i.e. spanking)

Time moved differently aboard Boba’s ship, doubly so in his quarters. Everything held a strange quality to it, and Din couldn’t go five minutes without starting to compare everything to what he lost on the Razor Crest.

Fuck, the Crest.

“You’re thinking again,” Boba said from above, making Din jolt. He’d thought the man was still asleep. “We’re still in hyperspace. Rest.”

“Can’t exactly shut off the worry,” Din said with a huff, trying not to shuffle uncomfortably on the bed. It was large and well-maintained, nothing like the frayed, flat mattress on the—

“You are thinking too much. Need some help with that?”

For the first time, Din met the calm tone with a surge of frustration.

“You’d rather have me as a thoughtless vegetable?” he said, shoulders seizing up even as he spoke.

There was a pause, too long and meaningful to mean anything other than,  _ excuse me? _

The tips of Din’s ears went red, and he swallowed a little roughly. He was thankful for the dim light overhead, just enough not to trip in the dark cabin, but enough to make out Boba’s form as he sat up.

“We can go down this route too, you know,” Boba said evenly, with promise behind every word. The curl of his lips around the rounder syllables always did something to Din’s heart, making it skip a beat or two. Now, his heart was beating quickly, with the impending promise of whatever Boba had in mind. “I’m no stranger to those that wish to test me.”

_ Test him? _

“You mean you’ll punish me,” Din said, all his breath leaving him at once with the realization. Boba held his gaze through the dark, and Din took a shuddering breath.

“If I have to. This is built on respect and trust and rules,  _ jat’ika. _ I won’t have you breaking them without recourse.”

His curiosity got the better of him. “What kind of recourse?” He didn’t remember a time where his voice felt smaller than it did now.

“Nothing permanent, but you will remember it.” Din shivered, excited about the prospect despite his hesitation. “We will not have to find that out if you cooperate and behave.”

_ Behave. _ The word grated on Din just a little bit, making him huff a little. “I’m meant to be a good boy for you all the time, then?”

Boba’s gaze held a glint of amusement, which only aggravated him further. “It’s not about what you’re meant to do, little one. It’s about what you want to do.”

“Then why even do this? Why even try to deal with me if I’m not going to be a kriffing—”

“You will want to think very carefully about your next words, my boy.” Boba’s voice was a vow, a foretelling, and Din was hurtling into the prophecy as easily as gravity. Din swallowed.

“No I don’t.”

The electric quality of the air could have sparked. In one swift movement, Boba had the lights on and was standing, still completely nude, and looming over Din’s side of the bed.

“What’s your word?” Boba asked. His stillness was somehow more threatening in the moment than his swift, lethal movements just before. Din’s breath caught in his throat as he looked up, embarrassment flooding his veins.

“B-beskar,” Din whispered.

“Will you use it if it goes too far?”

“Yes,” Din answered, somehow even softer.

“Yes what?”

“Yes daddy.”

“Good.”

Despite the approval in his words, Boba still pulled him over his lap, exposing his sleep-warm back to the chill in the air. Din made a small noise and squirmed, instinct telling him to squirm away, get himself out of danger. The headiness of skin contact dulled the urge, however. His body greedily accepted the wide thighs pressing into his chest and gut, and to his mortification, his cock gave a valiant twitch of effort.

Nothing got past Boba. “Easy, boy. Keep moving and this will go much worse for you than it already will.”

It was the cool steel in his tone that stilled Din in an instant.

“Keep your hands on my legs. If you scratch me, you will regret it.”

Din just nodded, rendered mute by the whole situation. To his confusion, Boba did nothing, just sat there with one hand on the back of his neck, the other gently moving him into position. Logically, Din knew there was just one direction for this to go, from the exposed state of his backside and his prostrate body. His cheeks burned with anticipation.

“You were behaving very badly for me, boy,” he began. “I do not tolerate that kind of behavior with those I invite to my bed.”

Din’s eyes prickled with unshed tears and a lump formed in his throat. He hung his head, knowing he’d disappointed Boba.

“You will get ten.”

_ Ten what? _

“If you try to block them or move, you will get five more. I expect you to count for me. Is that understood?”

_ “Elek.” _

_ “Jate.” _

Din was trembling. Not in fear, but in anticipation, curiosity still lighting up every nerve in his body. Was he actually about to do this? Kriff, but the disappointment in Boba’s tone made him want to hurl himself out the airlock. At least this would help fix things.

And he certainly wasn’t thinking about anything other than that.

Boba’s hands trailed almost lazily over Din’s back and sides, like he was gentling a frightened beast. A self-loathing part of Din’s mind screamed that he didn’t deserve it, but Din could not hear it through the blood rushing through his ears. His skin sang at every touch, and little by little, he relaxed into the position, almost melted.

And then the first slap to his ass came.

He nearly choked on his tongue, eyes flying open to stare at the floor in shock. It was such a different sensation than the touches Boba had given him before, and it felt like a flash-fire, all-consuming and commanding.

Boba waited until Din got over the initial surprise.

Oh.

_ “Solus,  _ daddy,” he choked out, fingers flexing around Boba’s ankle.

A hum from above, the only indication of him having heard Din. Boba didn’t think he’d take to this so well, but Din was a man of many surprises, so he should have hoped for the best. Din deserved someone thinking the best of him, anyway.

Boba kept his hand over the rapidly-heating skin of Din’s backside, not rubbing, just feeling the sting there. He gave another slap, making Din jolt again, like he hadn’t been expecting it at all.

“Two…”

“Hm?”

_ “T’ad, t’ad, ni ceta, ni—” _

“Hush, sweet boy.” Boba rubbed a hand up his spine, giving him the touch he so craved, a praise written on every brush of his fingertips. Din shivered, the tremble in his body returning for another reason. Two spanks in, and Boba could already feel the minute movements of Din’s hips, just a little roll of them, desperately seeking friction. Any other time, Boba would have chided him for it, called him on his needy behavior, but it was important that this punishment served its purpose well.

Boba landed the next slap over where he’d put the first, keeping his hand there to feel and knead at the reddening flesh underneath. Din let out a keen. He was a bounty hunter, he had scars littered over his body, but nothing had wrecked him so swiftly, so easily as this.

Din kept counting in Mando’a, and almost broke at number seven. The prickling behind his eyes had turned to complete tears, and like the first time they’d come here, the first time Din had been granted access to Boba’s lap, they fell hard and without end in sight. He hiccupped out a pathetic,  _ “E’tad,” _ and Boba’s chest ached, watching his little  _ jat’ika _ fall apart like this.

“I hope you know it hurts me as much as you to do this,” Boba said softly, and the sniffling turned into a sob, a wordless apology into his leg, where Din was clutching desperately. “I know you can be so good for me, little one. I know you can.”

Another slap rang through the room, and Din could hardly spit out the word for it, trembling like he was. He couldn’t even see the pattern in the durasteel floor anymore, his eyes were so full of tears. He pressed his face into Boba’s leg, the scar-smooth skin warm over the hard muscle there.

_ “Sh’eyn, _ daddy.  _ Sh’eyn,” _ he cried.

He was almost hysterical, which brought Boba’s hand back up the tense muscles around Din’s spine in long, slow pets that calmed him back down. They scratched at the nape of his neck, just in the nerve-heavy area there that made Din’s voice go high around his weeping. It anchored him back down, and a squeeze to his leg told Boba that Din didn’t need to use his word.

“There’s just two more, sweetheart.  _ Ner kar’ta, _ can you take two more?”

_ “‘Lek, elek…” _ Din whispered harshly. “I can be good.”

Boba steeled himself against the surge of pride that rushed through his chest at the words. “I know,  _ jat’ika.” _ He followed with another hard spank, right at the sit-spots where Din would feel it most. He couldn’t waver now, knowing he was what Din needed most right now.

Din would be surprised, later, at how vocal he’d been. He was so soft-spoken and quiet normally, and he knew his throat would be sore from the noises he was muffling into Boba’s leg. His hands shook as he held on, and his voice shook when he spoke.  _ “She’cu, _ daddy.” His voice had returned to a whisper. Boba knew he was at the end of what he could take, and was relieved he didn’t have to add on any more punishment like he’d threatened to.

“Good boy. So good for me.” Boba took his time, letting Din get back to a steady pulse before laying the last slap down. His poor, sweet boy. He’d be feeling it for a long while.

_ “T-ta…” _

_ Come on, darling,  _ Boba thought.

_ “Ta’raysh.” _

_ There’s my boy. _

Din melted, no more strength in his body. Boba scooped him up, pulling him back into his arms again. He looked a right mess, tears all over his face and up into his hair, from where he’d been hanging his head while spread over Boba’s lap. His body still shook with the force of his tears. Boba laid little kisses over his face, pressing away the tears and sadness that lingered.

“You did so good for me,  _ jat’ika.” _ Boba slipped a hand in his hair, pulling his head toward Boba’s neck. In the warm crook of his neck, Din felt safe and sheltered. All he could sense was Boba. There were no other things to think about right then, just him. Slowly, the trembles fizzled out of his body, and left him almost cold.

“Cold, daddy…” Din said softly. He got a kiss to his temple.

“Thank you for telling me. Let’s get you cleaned up and set in bed. You need some rest. Daddy loves you so much,  _ cyare.” _ Din just nodded at the love laid on him, too out of it to protest. He was carried to the small ‘fresher, and propped up against the wall while Boba cleaned him up.

When Boba wiped away the snot and tears from his face, he made a soft sound of protest, but was shushed by a kiss to his nose, followed by a gentle press of Boba’s forehead against his. It stilled all thoughts and quaking insecurities in his mind, leaving him boneless and floating. He knew, distantly, that he should feel some kind of shame and even pain from the spanking Boba gave him. Oh, how the mighty have fallen, Karga would have said. Even Cara would have looked at him differently, had she known.

But Boba promised, no one else would know about their relationship within Boba’s chambers. Boba had not broken a promise to him yet.

“There’s my beautiful boy,” Boba said when Din was all cleaned up. The punishment had killed his sex drive somewhere along the way, which Din was glad for. He felt more bone-tired than he’d felt in a long time. Boba stole another kiss from him.

“I’m—”

“Hush,” Boba interrupted him. “We’ll talk about it after you’ve gotten some rest, alright?”

Din met his eyes, the first time since challenging him. He saw no disappointment, couldn’t even imagine any lived behind those eyes. Boba was comfortable and relaxed, and for all appearances looked  _ pleased _ with him. Praise and admonishment hadn’t been able to penetrate past his beskar before, and Boba had managed to worm his way into a very desperate, starving part of his soul, and nursed it back into some level of stability. He didn’t have any kind of protection against this, but… 

Boba had never given him a reason to guard against his advances.

Even through the beating his backside had taken, the rules and the humiliation, Boba had been very careful to protect Din. He’d barked out for the others to turn away back on the Lothal moon, he’d carried him away to safety through the skies, checked and treated him for injuries, and taken him apart to be put back together with unerring ease.

He nodded. “Thank you.”

It was as he fell asleep, drifting in Boba’s arms on the bed, that he realized he felt wholly complete for...the first time. There were no fantasies he could conjure, no scenarios or fleets of fancy, that he could think up without Boba being at the center of them all.

As much as he would have liked to protest and say his first thought was “well, shit,” it wasn’t true. His first thought was “good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando'a - translation
> 
> Elek/'lek - yes  
> Jate - good  
> Jat'ika - endearing term  
> Solus - one  
> T'ad - two  
> Ni ceta - sorry (extremely rare form, literally meaning "I kneel" (thanks to the commenter who pointed this out!))  
> E'tad - seven  
> Sh'eyn - eight  
> Ner kar'ta - my heart  
> She'cu - nine  
> Ta'raysh - ten  
> Cyare - sweetheart, darling


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> cw for explicit smut, note rating change to E, din djarin gets piped (yay!!)

Boba Fett’s safehouses were vast in number and style, but one thing was common throughout each one: the doors triple-locked, the windows were blaster-proof, and the comms links were the most secure in the galaxy. When they arrived in the Core, the crew held their breaths as Slave I passed through security checkpoints. Fett was the only one not surprised about how smooth it all went. After all, it was his splice code that masqueraded the ship’s identity. He trusted his work like he trusted himself.

Din was thankfully healing well from the attack on the Lothal moon, only a slight limp to his frame as he moved around. He spent the remainder of the flight recalibrating the circuitry in his life support and his helmet, using Boba’s store of spare parts.

They emerged from the boarding ramp as the sun was setting over the popular spaceport, which was situated just a small distance from a seaport. Boba liked luxury, having at least one safehouse in the heart of some ritzy resort town would be par for the course. They moved in a diamond formation through the crowded market center, keeping an eye on one another. Walking together would draw too much attention. Fett kept his helmet off and in a pack with the rest of his armor. One Mandalorian was attention enough for them.

About a klick into the winding roads and alleyways, they reached a quieter neighborhood. This must have been where the locals stayed, out of the way of any tourist attractions and the rabble. Fett turned down another dark alley, the others following close behind, eager to rest and shut their eyes for a while. Din brought up the rear, watching for a tail before sinking into the shadows.

After a complicated-looking lock was undone, they were let in. In contrast to the cramped feeling that came with the surrounding neighborhood, the house they entered was light and airy, done in soft gray and white. The furniture looked well-made and sturdy, if a bit dusty. “Room down there’s mine, take your pick of the ones upstairs,” Boba sighed, setting down his bag. Cara and Fennec disappeared up the stairs, while Din stood awkwardly, shuffling on his feet.

“Did you uh,” Din starts, uncertain.

“Put your things down in mine,  _ jat’ika,” _ Boba said calmly.  _ Well, if he’s not making a big fuss about it, I’m not. _

Din took Fett’s bag and walked down the hall. There were paintings on the walls of the seaside they’d only glimpsed as they walked through the port. As would be expected of a safehouse, there were no personal items or knick-knacks, nothing to give away that the galaxy’s most notorious bounty hunter liked to lay low here. There were no valuables or expensive tech that could make this place the target of a robbery. Even if it wasn’t modestly furnished, the security would have been enough of a deterrent.

Fett’s bedroom was comfortable. Din could tell the bed was soft just by looking at it. A window sat covered by dark curtains on one wall, a closet on the opposite. He put the bags down near the dresser and sighed, exploring a bit more. There was a modest ‘fresher, and an honest-to-Maker bathtub. Din shut the bedroom door and removed his helmet, getting hit with a spicy scent he couldn’t quite pinpoint.

Upon his first breath, it smelled like home.

There was a strong tickle of cinnamon and clove, some kind of flower he couldn’t identify, warm ginger, and gentle citrus. He eventually found the diffuser with the scented oil, sitting just inside the ‘fresher door. Din didn’t normally get the chance to smell such perfumed things as this, most of his life spent on the inside of his helmet. To his embarrassment, he sneezed, right as the door to the room slid open.

Boba gave him an amused look, following to where Din had been practically inhaling the reeds in the diffuser. “I can take them out if you’re allergic,” he said, removing his bracers and rolling his shoulders.

Din pouted. “I’m not allergic to spices, I’m a Mandalorian.”

“Okay, sneezy.”

They unpacked and settled, Din’s beskar wordlessly stacking atop the dresser, next to Fett’s. “You ever think about painting it?” Boba asked, taking off his boots with a groan. This was always his favorite part after the day ended.

“Not really. I’m not of a feared or revered lineage, and the colors never...really spoke to me. The meanings, I guess.”

Boba gave a laugh, setting his boots down by the dresser. “You think I chose the colors of my armor for the  _ meaning?” _ Din looked a bit flabbergasted. “What’s green again? Duty?” It made him laugh even harder. “Colors are colors. There’s only so many of them, only so many of us. Better look as sharp as you can before you die.”

“You—you. But you have the—” Din flapped his hand at the armor. “Kill stripes?”

“Thought they looked cool.”

“But the red, you’re—”

“A total daddy’s boy? Thought that was your job.”

Din choked on air, taken off-guard by the joke. He blinked up at Boba, trying to figure out which roles they were playing. Boba motioned him closer, still sitting on the bed. Din was pulled between the spread of Boba’s thighs, a shy blush creeping up his neck from beneath his shirt. Boba tracked the blush with his fingertips, pushing his hands under the bottom of Din’s shirt and against the smooth, warm skin he kept hidden from the galaxy.

“So soft,” Boba cooed. Din’s breath hitched in his throat, and his hands twitched at his sides. Din leaned down, a hair’s breadth from Boba’s lips, drawn in by his gentle words and gentler touches. “Go ahead,” Boba whispered, his lips brushing Din’s. Din whimpered and dove forward, kissing Boba messily. His inexperience showed greater when he was desperate for affection.

Boba didn’t blame him.

Boba kissed him back, gentle and calm, letting Din take the lead. When their tongues touched, Din gasped and pulled back a little, his eyes wide. Boba looked like he wanted to eat him alive. “That okay,  _ jat’ika?” _

Din nodded before he finished speaking, kissing him deeply again and putting his hands on Boba’s shoulders. He pulled back and looked between them, at their legs. “Can I…”

“Get on daddy’s lap?”

“Yes,” Din whispered hoarsely.

“Ask me nicely.” Boba greatly enjoyed the full-body shiver that went through Din’s body at the words.

“D-daddy, can I get on your lap?” Din asked softly, so beautifully.

“Of course you can, sweet boy.” Din straddled Boba’s wide lap, the stretch feeling delicious and thrilling in his own legs and hips. “There you go. How about we get this off of you?” Boba plucked at Din’s shirt. “Arms up.”

Din did as he was told, and lifted his hands in the air. He felt like a little boy, even more so when Boba took his shirt off and put it to the side, never once taking his eyes off Din. “Daddy,” Din protested, shivering without any of his layers.

“Oh, don’t worry, I’ll keep you warm.”

“Even though I—?” Din’s uncertainty shone through in his face, and Boba put himself back in protector mode.

“What is it?” he asked. “Do you need me to help you?” Din shook his head, and Boba’s heart dropped a little until he shrugged and nodded. His initial disappointment was replaced with confusion. “I think you might need to use more words than that.”

Din let out a frustrated noise, not at Boba, but at himself. “I just—” The tension started to return to his shoulders, and Boba acted quickly.

“Do you need it or do you want it?” Boba tried.

Din sighed, glad Boba understood. “I want it. I just...what I don’t want is to ask too much. Maybe it’s not a distraction or a solution or any of the bullshit words we’ve complicated this with. It’s just you, and it’s just me. Can I want that?” He ended his ramble with a tentative look up at Boba through his lashes.

Boba’s heart surged. He held Din’s face in his hands. “Of course you can. And what’s better, you can have it.”

“Oh,” Din said with a surprised smile. “That’s...that’s nice.”

“Sweet Din. Come here.” Boba pulled them to the middle of the bed, hovering over him. “You call me whatever you want, sweetheart. Alright?”

“Yes, daddy.” Din gave him a saucy little smirk; he had no idea what it did to Boba for all of two seconds before Boba showed him.

Boba pressed his body weight down over Din’s slim frame, keeping him in place with all that powerful muscle. He ran hot, and it only made Din’s excited body that much more frantic. “You too,” Din mumbled.

“Me too, what?”

“Take off your shirt, too?” he asked. “Please?”

“Thank you for asking so nicely.” Boba shifted so his thighs were under Din’s legs, leaving him more exposed. He liked looking down at Din’s heaving chest, his kiss-swollen lips, his blown-out irises. He looked debauched, and they haven’t even gotten started. Boba peeled off his shirt, and took hold of Din’s legs, grinding their hips together, the hot line of his cock nestling in right against the cleft of Din’s ass.

Din made a cute little squeaky noise, a hand going to his mouth to stifle any others that could come out. Boba gave him a wolfish grin, looking every bit the predator who caught his prey. He grinds down on him again. “You feel what you do to me? Feel how hard you make me, Din?”

“Y-yeah,” Din whispered, almost biting down on the side of his wrist to keep himself under control.

“You want me to fuck you, just like this?” Boba asked, blunt as ever.

And just as before, Din responded to the boldness in shocked surprise. Boba gave him a few seconds to answer. His gut reaction, his facial expression, wasn’t a yes or a no. He had to hear it from his pretty lips.

“But I’ve never—”

“Oh, you think I don’t like that?” Boba asked, giving him another slow roll of his hips. “You think I haven’t thought about fucking you into a mattress til you can’t remember your name? You think I haven’t thought about being the first one to show you what that feels like? To be the only one in the kriffing galaxy to see that beautiful face?”

Din made another choked-off noise. “I want you. I want you to. To do that. Please.” His body was starting to tremble again, shaking from excitement and nervous energy.

“Mm, that’s what I like to hear.” Boba leaned over his body, lining their erections up and grinding them next to one another. Din gasped, and Boba took the opportunity to press his tongue deep in Din’s mouth, licking over his teeth and biting at his lips like some sort of feral animal. “Fuck, you feel so good beneath me. You like being down there?”

“Yes!” Din cried, his nails tentatively scratching into Boba’s scarred back.

“Go ahead,  _ jat’ika. _ You won’t hurt me,” Boba encouraged. Din gave him a kind of helpless expression before whimpering and grinding back on him as well.

They rocked like that, just feeling one another’s bodies, for several long, hot minutes. Din felt like he was going to  _ die _ of absolute madness, the promise of  _ more _ coming closer and closer on the horizon, but not close enough to satisfy. “Daddy,” he panted. “Please?”

“Eager little thing, aren’t you?” Boba said, sucking a dark mark over Din’s heart, leaving him purple and red where the rest of the galaxy beat him black and green. He laid kisses down on every scar he could get to.

Din had cauterized many of his own wounds before. In deserts and tundras, where there weren’t living souls for miles, he would cry out his pain and frustration as he hurt himself to stay alive. He lost feeling in nerves that never deserved to die, and it left him a map of blackened feeling, a numb void where there should have been stars. It made him sick to brush his hands over the healed ones and made him angry when the others still brought pain through the numbness. When Boba kissed his scars, he had some kind of magic touch to him, bringing dead things back to life. It made sense that the man who could crawl himself back from the dead could light up every crippled nerve in his body like they were at full capacity again, and not a part of the broken whole he found himself looking at in the mirror.

Boba took off his and Din’s underwear, discarding it as he had everything else so far - nowhere in particular, just  _ away. _ Every inch of skin that was revealed got equal love and careful treatment under his hands, from the gentle slope of beautiful, unscarred skin on Din’s right hip, to the gash in his side from the incident with the mudhorn. Boba rubbed the tip of his nose over the scar, ghosting his breath over it until Din jolted, overstimulated from too many sensations at once.

“Shh,” Boba murmured, petting a hand over his side, not too slow, not too fast. Din melted into the touch, and the bed below. Boba finally touched his cock, holding it in a firm grasp. He wasted no time getting his mouth on Din, sucking around the head of his cock eagerly. Din nearly came right there, kicking and shouting, were it not for Boba’s firm hand on his thigh, keeping him in place.

Din relaxed into this feeling, too. He knew this wasn’t fucking. He’d seen enough lewdness around the galaxy to know they were nowhere near fucking just yet. He made a frustrated grunt, wanting to feel Boba inside of him already. Boba, still very distracted by the cock he was worshiping, just gave a hum, waiting for his  _ jat’ika _ to use his words.

“Boba!” Din huffed. His hair was wild from his thrashing about on the sheets, but not as wild as his eyes, fever-bright and pleasure-crazed. “Are you going to fuck me or are you distracted?” His voice was so raspy and wrecked, he almost sounded like he did with the helmet on.

Boba pulled off with a wet pop. “Oh, you know how to ask for things nicely, I’ve heard you do it,” he teased.

Din flushed even deeper at that, swallowing his frenetic frustrations and taking a breath. He looked at the ceiling like there might be the way out of this situation written on the tiles.

They weren’t. They were written on the smug expression on Boba’s face, and they said  _ play by the rules. _

“Daddy,” Din started, his voice unintentionally husky and low. “Can you, pretty please, fuck me now?”

“We absolutely can,” Boba’s smirk grew into a grin, and he kissed the top of Din’s thigh before moving away. “Need to grab some things. Why don’t you keep playing with yourself, show me you can be good.”

Din made a pleased little noise at the challenge, the promise that he could still be good for Boba. He wrapped his hand around his own cock, still slick with Boba’s spit. The coolness of the air in the room had sent conflicting senses to Din’s brain, and the hand on himself only tripled that confusion. He sighed and scooted back against the pillow he’d managed to wriggle off of, in his desperation.

Boba returned with a bottle of that clove-scented oil, stretching himself languidly on the bed beside Din. “Hello, sweetheart,” he purred, nipping at Din’s earlobe. The feeling of Boba’s soft breath on his neck felt more intimate than his mouth on his cock just a minute ago. “Gotta get you ready to take me, that alright?”

Din nodded, his legs not cooperating very well. “Wha’do I do?” Din asked.

“You just sit there and look pretty. Lift your hips for me, there like that.” Boba put a pillow beneath his ass, lifting him up a little higher. “You’ll be more comfortable like that. Good boy.”

He gently rubbed his hands over Din’s ass, squeezing and pulling the cheeks apart just to tease at him. Din squirmed a little under the attention. “You ever touch yourself back here, Din?” Boba asked in a rasp. Din shook his head, more of a jerky motion, so at odds with the grace he normally moved with. “Pity. Bet you make such beautiful noises. I’m going to touch you.” Boba followed through, just a warm fingertip against his hole. Din jolted, despite the warning, but was gentled back to relaxation again.

Boba kissed his shoulder as he touched Din, getting his body used to the touch. He hadn’t expected Din to want this, honestly. He was so sheltered and unaware of his own body, so afraid of being taken advantage of, or betraying his creed, that he didn’t even let himself feel good. Boba warmed the oil up in his hands before continuing to touch him.

“How’s that?” he asked. “Better?” The slick slide of his oiled fingers made Din tense and relax with his goddamn heartbeat, the sensation just this side of overwhelming. Boba slowed down, until Din was used to it, and then moved on. He pressed his finger in, just the tip, keeping it there for him to squirm on. “There you go, get used to it. When you want me to move, you tell me. You don’t want it there anymore, you tell me.”

“Yes, daddy,” Din panted. His mind was going crazy, but he’d listen to his daddy always. He gave a short whine and tried bearing down on the finger, wanting to take it deeper. “More?” he asked shyly.

“Of course.” Boba pushed his finger in deeper. Din gasped and forced himself to relax into it. It was...strange. But knowing Boba was _ inside _ him, at least in some capacity, made his head spin. A low groan built in his chest, and left him in a breathy moan. Boba started to move, just pumping his finger in and out, using loads of oil. “Doing so good, Din. So good for me.”

He curled his finger inside of him, making Din gasp and his hips stutter. “Oh, if you like one, I think you’ll like two, hm?” Boba asked. Din just nodded eagerly.

Din took to fingering beautifully, his body responsive and hot as sin. Boba could’ve spent all day like this, just touching his insides and making him see stars with every brush over his prostate. Every gasp of “more” spurred Boba on, and had his cock practically drooling into the bedsheet by the time Din whined for his cock.

Boba used pretty much the last of the oil to slick up his cock, but the smooth slide into Din’s body was well worth it. Din tossed his head back, before curling up to watch Boba sink into him, and then back again. His concentration was all over the place, his mind in fragments and jagged pieces, broken against Boba’s gentle touches.

“Doing perfect for me, baby, fuck you feel so good around me,” Boba groaned, keeping himself sitting back so he could watch Din’s body react to taking a cock for the first time. “That’s right, you can moan for me, you make as much noise as you want.”

Din hadn’t even realized he’d been making any noise. His whines and whimpers cut off suddenly as Boba’s dick brushed over his prostate again, his eyes flying open. Boba gave a devilish grin and drew his hips back, the slick clutch of Din’s body dragging with him. He pressed against that spot again, almost punching the air out of Din’s lungs with it.

They found their rhythm, both of them relaxing into it with the same ease they relaxed into this entire situation. Din couldn’t think about a single thing that ever worried him in all his life when he was taking Boba’s cock, when he was being a good boy for him. His back arched into Boba’s body, and Boba covered him up like a precious thing.

They rolled together, long and languid slides of skin that Din would think about later and blush at the memory of. Later, he’d think of the drag of Boba’s teeth over his collarbone, the bite of his own nails into Boba’s shoulders, the way his heels dug into the small of Boba’s back like it was his last foothold on sanity. Later, he’d remember the kisses they shared, deep and wet and  _ noisy, _ full of teeth and gentleness, both of their natures at odds with one another. Later, he’d recall the words Boba whispered in his neck, the promises and praise that he didn’t understand, but  _ felt _ in his heart anyway. Later, he’d know the ache of his body and crave the act that put it there, he’d see the bulk of Boba’s body in his armor and want to peel it off, knowing what waited beneath.

But for now, he simply lost his entire fucking mind.

He didn’t know how many times he came that night, didn’t know exactly how they broke the soft mattress beneath them, but Boba had promised to fuck him into the bed, and into the bed was where he was fucked. Boba had marked him up with his release, spilling hot over Din’s torso, where Din had left his own. After, he licked up practically every drop, and shared a filthy kiss that should have been revolting, if it weren’t for the fact that Din had exactly one thought in his mind, on repeat, loud as a supernova.

_ Boba. _

The return of his thoughts came just before he drifted off in Boba’s arms, and he thought about how he wanted to break every bed in every safehouse Boba had.


	7. Chapter 7

They get a hit on Bo Katan’s location the next morning, their last resort for help, but a choice they had to make. Din paced the flat nervously, his helmet off while Cara and Fennec got the ship fueled up and resupplied. They were so close. So close to getting Grogu back, to getting everything as it should be again. Why was he so jittery?

“Drink?” Fett asked from the kitchen, holding a bottle of Corellian whiskey dangling between his fingers like an unruly mouse.

“Anything but whiskey. Gives me a headache,” Din muttered.

“Dunno if you’ll like the alternative. It’s spicewine.”

“Spicewine is fine.” Din chewed at the corner of his thumb, a nervous habit that came back when the helmet was off for long enough. Fett uncorked the bottle and poured two glasses, bringing them over to Din. Muscle memory had him swallowing down the entire glass at once. He never had the luxury of enjoying his food or drink in other’s company.

“Easy, there,” Fett chuckled. “It’ll get to your head faster that way.”

“Isn’t that the point?” Din asked miserably. “To make you forget why you’re drinking?”

“No, but I’ve known people that see it that way. It’s a miserable life, devoting yourself to forgetting.” He looked out at the setting sun, his expression carefully neutral in a way that told Din he’d let on too much at once. Out of respect, he didn’t press him on the topic.

“You know, this could be our last night,” Din said softly. It was a bit vague by words alone, but the way his body angled towards Fett’s, armorless in more ways than one, gave it another meaning. “We should spend it—”

“Din,” Boba said, turning his head to him. There was a weariness in his gaze that said...something. Din swallowed, losing his sure footing, realizing for the first time that perhaps, he didn’t know Boba as well as he thought he did.

“Yeah?” Din asked, his body swaying into Boba’s orbit.

There was a long moment where they just looked in one another’s eyes, troubled for reasons that would make their teeth ache to speak aloud. There was so much pent-up...everything that couldn’t be said, written on their expressions, in their eyes. “You need a haircut,” Boba said, and it deflated the tension in the room a little. On instinct and out of pure insecurity, Din’s hand flew up to the wild mess atop his head.

It hadn’t been this long in awhile. The curl pattern he remembered having as a child was a thing lost to his past. So many years had been spent with clippers or a wickedly sharp blade, hacking at the growth until he wasn’t sweating buckets under the helmet. But now, it was reaching past his ears in certain spots, and tickling the back of his neck, falling into his eyes in a frustrating manner. Of course Boba would know he was more comfortable with shorter hair than longer hair.

“I can go take care of it,” Din said uneasily, glancing back at the door to the bedroom they shared, the broken bedframe just peeking around the corner back at him. He drank more of the spicewine, knowing he’d need to steel himself for his appointment with his reflection.

Boba scoffed, almost offended. Din looked back at him curiously. “Let me?” Boba asked, almost exasperated to even offer his services. Was Din’s hack job really that bad that Boba felt he should take matters into his own hands? At Din’s stunned silence, he continued. “Before the sarlacc, believe it or not, I had a full head of hair.”

“What did you look like?” Din blurted out.

_ Just like my father. _

“Prettier,” Boba said instead. “Come with me.”

They went to the fresher off of their bedroom and Boba instructed him to sit on the floor while he sat behind him. Din looked at the small cabinet before him, already feeling his mind zone out from the body heat Boba’s legs were giving off. It wasn’t kneeling, but the feeling of being here, on the floor with Boba above him, it was close.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when a towel was placed around his neck and shoulders. “Easy,” Boba said, pressing a large hand over Din’s head. He filled the sink with water, steam rising from the basin where Din couldn’t see. He started to nervously babble.

“I usually just cut it dry,” Din said. “Just with a knife or something. Never got the hang of clippers.”

“Clippers are a learning curve for everybody,” Boba said with warmth, dipping his hands in the water and bringing them back to Din’s head. He started to run his wet fingers through Din’s hair, distributing the water evenly so he had damp, but not wet hair. Din couldn’t even think to say another thing, the sensation of Boba’s hands on his head proving so distracting he didn’t even notice his head falling forward until Boba gently pushed him back with two fingers on his forehead. They sat there like that, Boba’s hands buried in Din’s hair and gently scratching at his scalp until Din was abuzz with sensation. “You have gray hair at your temples,” Boba observed.

“Sorry,” Din said on instinct, embarrassment turning the tips of his ears a dark pink.

“Nothing to be sorry about. It’s a sign of stature and authority more often than not. Wisdom, experience. I was just starting to go gray when I fell into hell.” Boba’s description of the Pit of Carkoon was concerning. Din didn’t want him to fall into the memories of that experience, not now. He put a hand on Boba’s ankle, just to ground him to this moment, this present. Boba gave a little scratch of appreciation and withdrew his hands. Din almost made a noise of loss, a sad little whimper, but Boba wasn’t going far. He brought his hands back to Din’s head and pulled on the locks a little.

“What are you doing?” Din asked.

“Finding out your curl pattern. My father had these tight, incredibly neat curls, I remember them clear as day, always put together. When I became a man and my hair started to curl tighter like that, I could never get it the same as he looked. Of course, I had been using sonic showers and little else, but hair takes time, hair takes patience and understanding.” It was a bit breathtaking to hear the fearsome Boba Fett speaking about something like this, but he spoke with confidence.

“My hair was never super curly,” Din said.

“You probably never took care of it,” Boba replied. It was blunt, factual. Din couldn’t help but think maybe Boba was talking about more than just his hair. “I don’t have much for you here, but perhaps I’ll show you someday how to take care of it. You won’t want to take a vibroblade to it again.”

Din cringed a little. “You can tell?”

“I can tell.” Boba gave a little hum, a decision made in his head. “Don’t have anything but shears, but let’s see what we can do.”

Gently, Boba began to cut his hair, pulling it in places and letting it fall in others, the soft rasp of the shears and the brush of his fingers through Din’s hair the only sounds between them. Din didn’t feel at all nervous or wary about Boba wielding such a sharp object near his neck. It was...new.

Just like before, the meditative, repetitive task drew a song from Boba’s chest. His hums filled the small room, and Din closed his eyes, remembering the first time Boba had sung it for him. “You remember?” Boba asked in a hushed tone. Din gave a small noise of assent instead of nodding. “Good boy. So attentive for me.”

Din swallowed roughly. He would never get used to the praise, would he? The gentle touches, the attention, the care. Boba folded his ear down a little to cut around the curve of it, and goosebumps broke out all over Din’s skin. “I like when you say things like that,” Din rasped.

“I know,” Boba said, gentle as his touches. “I mean them every time, you know.”

Din’s blush surged up the back of his neck, and Boba was in the perfect position to see it happen. He bit down on a grin. Playing with Din was already something his heart ached to lose, though the surety of that wasn’t certain.

Boba set down the shears after a while and ran his hands through Din’s hair again, shaking out errant clippings and dusting the rest away from his sensitive neck. “There,” he said, a little louder. “Feel it. Length alright?”

Din’s hands followed Boba’s path through his hair. There were no more chunks of unevenness throughout, no dry split ends that he could feel. It was...fuck, it was softer, too. How did Boba do that? It was shorter around the back and sides, most of the length sitting on top. He got to his feet on shaky legs and looked at himself in the mirror.

The man in Din’s reflection was not the one who had walked into the room. How strange, his mind provided, that through the removal of pieces of himself, he could be transformed? He didn’t know that his self-image was so full of hatred and loathing until he saw himself and his immediate reaction was:  _ handsome. _

“It’s great,” he choked out, barely breathing.

“Good,” Boba purred, standing with him and dusting off his thighs. “I think you look dashing.”

“Dashing?” Din said disbelievingly.

“Yes, Din Djarin, you are dashing.” Boba caught his gaze in the mirror, before setting his hands on Din’s shoulders. “We should clean you up. Can’t be comfortable with all those little hairs scratching you.”

“I’m fi—”

“Din,” Boba said in a warning tone. “You gonna listen to me?”

“Yes,” Din whispered, unable to look away.

“Yes what?”

“Yes, daddy.” He could no longer hide his blushing ears and cheeks under his long hair, and his affected self shone through clear as day. No more hiding, not for Boba.

“Good boy. Go ahead and undress.”

Boba filled the bathtub and poured in a few oils, leaving the water fragrant and soft. Din accepted Boba’s hand helping him in, and he nearly groaned at the feeling. “What is it?” Boba asked.

“Never had a bath before.” Of course, Greef Karga had tried getting him to visit the Twi’lek healing baths after practically every bounty assignment, but that was a disaster waiting to happen.

“That’s a shame. If you make that noise every time, you’ll be having one as much as I can make happen.” Din’s breath was stolen by Boba’s blunt words, unused to such immodest declarations even now. “Sit.”

Din luxuriated for the first time in his life. Even when bounties took him to glitzy Core planets, he never stayed the night in any of the gilded towers or danced at any glamorous parties. The  _ Crest _ had been another type of armor in its own right, and the inside of it would have never, ever resembled anything approaching luxury. The bath did its job quickly, soaking heat into his bones and dissipating the remaining tension in his muscles. He was distantly aware of Boba running a soapy cloth over his body, getting his skin just as soft and fragrant as the bathwater. 

“That’s it, just relax,” Boba encouraged. Din nodded, swallowing.

“Daddy?” Din slurred after a few minutes of the gentle treatment.

“Yes,  _ jat’ika.” _ Boba’s voice seemed to go a little lower when Din called him by the name without being prompted.

“Will you hum for me again? Or talk? I like your voice.”

“I can definitely do that for you.” Boba continued speaking in a low tone, letting his old bounty hunting story wander like his hands were. Din was on the verge of falling asleep in the bath after twenty minutes like that. The water was getting cold. “Let’s get you out,” Boba said in a whisper, standing to get the towel.

Din blinked up at him with sleepy eyes, wide and trusting. He stood for Boba when beckoned, and stayed still while Boba scrubbed the soft towel over his body. They returned to the bedroom, and the change in location reminded Din of his half-hearted attempts at seduction earlier.  _ Really, Djarin? We might die tomorrow so let’s fuck? _

Boba seemed to have the same thought, chuckling to himself as he pulled off his shirt. “Well, we could try and break it down the other way,” he said, gesturing to the rather sad faultline in the covers, evidence of their  _ rather aggressive _ lovemaking on full display.

“Or…” Din’s eyes drifted to the cushy armchair in the corner, under a floor lamp. Boba saw what he was implying and tightened his hand around Din’s waist.

“I like how you think.” He pulled Din over to the chair and took his seat, wrapping his hands around Din’s hips. “Look at you,” Boba growled, eyes raking all over Din’s body. “So fucking beautiful.”

Din went beet-red. “Can I suck your cock?” he asked to break up the tension, already going to his knees.

“Fuck, say that again,” Boba hissed, keeping a heavy grip on Din’s wrists.

“Daddy…” Din shuffled forward and let his head fall on Boba’s knee. “Can I please suck your cock? Please? Wanna say thank you, be good for you.”

“You’re always good for me,  _ jat’ika,” _ Boba grunted, closing his eyes to regain control over his senses. “Take me out.”

Din moved quickly, pulling on Boba’s fly and getting his rapidly-hardening cock out of his pants. Boba let them go down around his ankles, and Din knelt on them when he moved closer. He had a hungry look in his eyes, eager and begging for Boba’s go-ahead. Boba brought his hand to Din’s hair, scalp still sensitive from the haircut. “Open your mouth. Tongue out.” Din complied, and Boba took a moment to slap the head of his cock against his tongue. Unable to swallow the noise down, Din let out a throaty moan, needy and wanton. Boba lowered Din’s head down so he could get used to the stretch again. “Fuck, Din, your mouth is so hot.”

They moved slow, like they had all the time in the world and the galaxy wasn’t waiting on sunrise to shake them out of their daydream. Din needed hardly any guidance from him, already an expert at sucking Boba’s cock in the last several days of staying in the safehouse. Still, Boba kept his hand on Din’s head, tugging lightly at where his hair was thickest. He gave a firm pull on Din’s hair, pulling him off with a wet noise and a raggedy gasp for air.

“Wh—?” Din said.

“Get the slick from the table.” Din scrambled to obey, and climbed into Boba’s lap when instructed. Boba ran his hands all over Din’s body, skin breaking into goosebumps again. “So responsive for me,” Boba said. Din loved the ownership in his words when he spoke like that. He wanted to be Boba’s so badly. He knew Boba took care of his things as diligently as he took care of himself, and he’d been getting that same care. He could get used to it, honestly. Din pressed a shy kiss to Boba’s lips, which was returned in kind.

He expected the slick finger at his entrance, but still gasped into Boba’s mouth with a breathy, “Daddy…”

“That’s right, sweet boy, go ahead. Ride my finger for me.” Din’s thighs shook as he got used to the motion, lowering himself down on the intrusion with a soft groan. He was just thinking about the stretch of Boba’s cock in its place, and couldn’t wait to take it again, and let the universe shrink down to the size of their bodies once more.

“Feel so good, daddy, want more…”

“More?” Boba asked, keeping a hand on Din’s lower back so he didn’t fall backward. He pushed another slick finger in alongside the first, and swallowed down all of the beautiful noises Din made for him. “There you go, there you go. Good boy.”

Din’s breath hitched and he rolled his hips, just letting Boba explore his insides like they had all the time they wanted. By the time Boba got to three fingers, Din was a babbling mess of pleading and pleasure, teeth almost chattering with excited jitters coursing through his veins.

“Daddy, want your cock, want it in me, please, daddy, please give me your cock,” Din begged into Boba’s neck, trying not to drool all over his shoulder but not able to help himself. He was humping the air, drawn between rocking back onto Boba’s hand and searching for any kind of friction on his dick.

“You asked so nicely, I suppose I can give you what you want,” Boba chuckled, his rough breathing the only outward sign of how Din was affecting him. He removed his fingers from Din’s stretched hole and kissed away the soft pout that sprung to Din’s expressive face. Within a few heartbeats, he was pushing up, up, up into Din, finally. Din’s face was contorted in a mix of relief and discomfort. Boba moved slowly until Din’s ass finally rested on Boba’s lap. “Good boy, take me so well. Just stay like that a little longer, just a minute,  _ jat’ika.” _

Din shook in his arms, the weight of the universe threatening to break through his mind again. Boba kept a steady monologue in his ear, all praise and filthy fucking promises he knew Din wouldn’t have ever heard in his life. He pressed kisses into Din’s neck and shoulders, looking up at him with reverence and affection in his eyes.

It struck him how vulnerable they both allowed themselves to be around one another. Would they have this tomorrow? Would they let their guards again down after the rescue? Would Boba cease to be important in Din’s life? Boba hid how his hands shook by wrapping his arms around Din’s torso and pulling him up a few inches on his cock. Din gasped in his ear, a beautiful half-formed word lost in the rapids of sensation.

Their skin stuck in places and Din’s legs shook with exertion after a while of keeping this position, but urgency hit them at the same moment, that same fervor of the first night in the safehouse returning for their last night in paradise. Din met Boba’s eyes and the rest of the world fell away. Boba kissed him deeply once more, full of uncertainty and need. He was a selfish man. He would guard these memories with greed and envy as battlements in a house of cards. He found himself jealous of the blood in Din’s veins by the simple virtue of being in Din’s heart.

Their control broke like a snapped string, not even knowing they were fraying under tension. Din cried out and brought a hand to Boba’s chest as the head of Boba’s cock brushed his prostate, stealing his breath somehow more than it had already been stolen in the preceding moments. Boba’s grip found Din’s throbbing dick, and it only took a few firm pumps of his hand before Din was coming all over his chest with a shout. Boba was entranced, watching the long column of Din’s neck tense and flex around a silent plea for mercy. When Din finished coming, Boba wiped the come on his hand along Din’s side, over the jumping muscles of his abdomen. His chest heaved, mouth hanging slack and open and bitten and perfect. Boba held him hard, chasing his own release.

“Wanna come all over your face,  _ jat’ika,” _ Boba grunted. Din gave another throaty moan and nodded, hands going to the arms of the chair so he was ready to hop off at a moment’s notice. When the familiar tension built in Boba’s gut, he nodded tightly at him.

Din nearly collapsed off of the chair, landing on his ass and gasping. Boba towered above him, quickly tugging at his dick, still slick and hot from being inside of Din. “You want me to come on you, Din?”

“Yes, daddy, please come on me.”

Boba bit off another shout and tensed all over, the pleasure crashing over him like a tidal wave. He groaned as he covered Din in his release, thick white ropes of come striping over Din’s pale skin.

Marking him.

The aftershocks of his orgasm hit him especially hard, threatening to buckle his knees. Din’s eyes were glassy and heavy-lidded, still coming down from his own pleasure. Boba collapsed into the chair again, just watching his boy laid out on the floor beneath him.

In the middle of the deafening silence that permeated between their heavy breaths, Din started to laugh. It was a beautiful, joyous noise. His eyes were squeezed shut, bent double and shaking. His voice was hoarse as all hell, but his laughter felt fresh, like he didn’t have many opportunities to do it that often.

“What’s so funny, sweet boy?”

Din grinned up at him, trying to speak again before breaking into laughter again. It brought a wide smile to Boba’s face, though his body bled exhaustion and tiredness.

“Y-you got me dirty again. After all that work getting me clean.” He found it just too amusing not to laugh at, caught between the too-hard future and the too-soft now. Boba hoped he could trust joy as easily as this.

“Well, I won’t leave you that way for long. Just let me rest a minute,” Boba chuckled.

“Yes, Daddy.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for dark themes, including thoughts of death, trauma, and suicide.

It all happened so fast.

At first.

One minute, everything was going the way it should, the TIEs had taken the bait, Boba had fled to hyperspace, the boarding team was on Gideon’s ship. When Boba had come out of the micro-jump, he attached the Slave I to the flattest side of an asteroid and waited.

And waited.

Thirty minutes had passed in a terrible blur Boba remembered feeling before, in the Pit of Carkoon. In the hot, bloody sand on Geonosis. He realized with a nasty jolt just how fatalistic his line of thinking had become.  _ The deal will be fulfilled. Din will get his kid, Kryze will get her Moff, and I… I’ll get nothing. _ “A Mandalorian lives deal to deal. Never make a deal you don’t know for certain you can’t live past finishing,” Jango had told him, just a bit of knowledge Boba hadn’t understood then, and knew all too well now.

Almost angrily, Boba tightened bolts around the tracking system monitor, adding a bit of percussive maintenance almost as an afterthought. The sharp clang of his vambrace against the machinery snapped him from his thoughts. Who was he to go around, banging his father’s ship to hell and back? Even now, he still tensed whenever he made a loud-enough sound on the ship. Not to mention the odd guilt of tinkering and tampering with practically everything on it. Back in the passenger bay, the immobilizing cots were re-initialized. Gideon would hopefully be coming back alive, if Kryze kept her promise and wasn’t so hot-headed as Fett knew she was.

Those damned comments about his father were...well, they weren’t pleasant. Usually Boba was better about those kinds of comments, but in his defense, not even Fennec Shand made those kinds of comments. 

Din hadn’t spoken to him afterwards, too focused on the mission to notice Boba’s ire, or if he had noticed it, it just hadn’t mattered, not with the kid so close. Boba sighed at the reminder, a deep exhale that he never wanted to stop, blow all his air and anxious energy out at once like he was jettisoning it from himself. A sharp beep on the comm had him almost gasping for air in surprise. He felt a bit ridiculous as a result. He opened the comm line.

“Mission’s over. Requesting pickup.” Fennec’s voice...shook. This wasn’t good. He moved silently through the crawlspace, packing up his gear.

“Affirmative. Any casualties?”

“Kryze got hit in the chest but she’s upright, Reeves says she’s had worse. Dune and I, we’re fine. Gideon’s knocked out but alive.” She paused, her voice catching on something again.

She was leaving out two very important details. Boba’s blood turned to ice even as he engaged the hyperdrive, returning to the light cruiser’s coordinates.

“Fennec. Just say it.”  _ Don’t say it, don’t say it... _

“Kriff, hold on.” Boba’s fingers tightened around the jump lever, pulling it back when indicated by the monitor. The cruiser came up like a damn wall in front of him, and he easily steered the ship to the docking zone, where several dozen stormtroopers lay scattered across the flight deck. Fennec’s voice was softer when she spoke again. “Mando didn’t get the kid.”

That’s...not what he expected.

“Then why are we still here?” Boba snapped, his relief coming out as impatience.

“I can’t explain it.”

_ “Try.” _

Dark troopers. A sword made of darkness. A sword made of green light. A Jedi. An x-wing.

“Boba...he took off his helmet. For the kid, he took it off, and he hasn’t put it back on, and I don’t know him like you do, but he looks like he might—”

Boba was already in motion, his feet barely touching the ground as he flew through the cargo hold and onto the flight deck. His indicator led him toward the bridge, but he caught up with the group as they were walking back. Reeves fired off a shot he barely managed to dodge before he shouted angrily, “You treat all your rides like that?”

After a beat, he stepped out from behind his cover, one hand on his blaster just in case. He scanned his eyes over the group: Shand. Dune. Gideon on Dune’s shoulder. Reeves. Kryze, glaring at…

Din.

The others may not have seen that look on his face before, but it’s one Boba was well-acquainted with. The boy was lost, holding his helmet like… like... 

Like he didn’t deserve to wear it, and like he didn’t know where to go. Boba brushed off the phantom heat of Geonosis and moved closer. “You not taking the ship, Kryze?” he said, banishing the memories.

She had her helmet off, tucked into her arm. Her fiery eyes met Boba’s expressionless visor. “No. Too much heat here. They shot off a distress signal before we could breach the bridge.”

“Better luck next time, princess.” Reeves made to take a swing at him, but Boba barely reacted. “Take one of the TIEs they still have docked in the hangar. You’re not coming back on my ship.”  _ Especially not with Din like this... _

“Why would I want to, anyway, you clone piece of—”

“Hey, Gideon’s not exactly a featherweight, alright? Am I permitted upon your ship, O Gracious Boba Fett?” Cara snarked at him, already walking right by, the disgraced Moff dangling like a ragdoll off her shoulder.

“There’s a cell waiting for him on board.” She and Fennec walked right by, and Kryze turned to Din, who barely reacted.

“This conversation is not over.”

“Just take the fucking saber, Kryze,” Din said, his voice tired and raspy in a way that meant he was on the verge of passing out on his feet. Fennec’s earlier warnings still rung through his mind like crashing church bells.  _ He looks like he might—  _ Boba’s eyes couldn’t leave him, picking up every twinge in his step, the way he favored one arm, the scorch marks on his vambraces. The spear remained at his back, but at the man’s words, Boba looked to his hip.  _ Dear kriffing lord. _

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Boba said before he could stop himself. The three looked at one another, bewildered. “Tell me that’s not the kriffing  _ Darksaber.” _

“It’s the Darksaber, so I’ve been told,” Din sighed, letting his helmet dangle from his fingertips while he pushed his other hand through his hair. It still held the same curls and easy wave as when Boba had cut it for him, but they’d been crushed by the helmet and sweat. “She won’t take it.”

Bo-Katan made a squawking, indignant noise at his blasé tone. “You won it in combat! I  _ can’t—” _

“You are being purposefully difficult for selfish reasons,” Din hissed, pain marring his features as equally as anger. “You shouldn’t need a fucking lasersword just to rule a planet. Go take Mandalore, go take your fucking ghosts, take your fucking sword, I don’t want it.”

“I have to best you in combat for it, it is the only way!”

“You would kill him? Kill a father, just for a hunk of metal and crystal?” Boba said, aghast. “You would kill him for a planet cursed with terrible rulers? Thought you had more honor than that.” He moved to Din’s side, still protecting, still protective.

“I don’t need to  _ kill him _ to—”

“Just fucking do it,” Din rasped.

“What?” Boba snapped.

“Just kill me. Just fucking take it. I’ve fulfilled my obligations to you, to both of you. Kid’s s-safe. Ship’s yours. Gideon’s captured. So kill me.” Din took a step forward, and Boba hardly heard the footfall over the blood rushing in his ears. “Kill me and live with the memory. Then tell the stars you won. No one will know but you,  _ Mand’alor.” _ The passageway was dead silent in response to his resigned testimony.

Boba’s heart dropped to his feet. He couldn’t mean…? He couldn’t possibly be serious. He felt dizzy, like the first time he ever hit anything with a blaster, and watched it fall to the ground, unmoving. He felt equal parts numb and not, the echoes of  _ not his father’s voice _ shouted through modulators, a terrible echo of what he had, and what he had lost. He felt the slam of a hull against his body, the impact of hot sand and the greedy pull of gravity, a clean swallow into the earth. He heard that horrible echo,  _ kill me, kill me, kill me... _

Bo-Katan looked just as horrified. “No,” she says, shaking her head for emphasis. “You’re injured. You...you wouldn’t fight like a warrior, as decreed by—”

Boba spoke, instinct at the helm where rational thought had abandoned ship. “Tradition is the only thing keeping you from taking the damned thing.”

“Stay out of this, clone,” she snapped back. A deep sigh from Boba’s left interrupted any reply he would have snarled in return.

“You know what? Fuck it, I’ll keep it. Come kill me, come fight me when you deem me ready, I don’t care. Work through your problems first, then you can be one of mine.” Din walked off without another word, leaving Boba to be the only one to bear witness to Bo-Katan’s fury.

Facts and figures raced through Boba’s mind and came to a stop at understanding: Din was behaving irrationally, and shouldn’t be left alone.

As he walked back the way he came, Boba couldn’t help himself. “You heard the  _ Mand’alor.” _

He was sure Bo-Katan was still shrieking when he boarded the Slave I. Gideon was all laid out in one of the mirrored transparisteel cells on the passenger deck, still unconscious. Even in this state, the man looked too cunning for his own good. He’d wake up in a mirrored box with nowhere to flee and nobody to sneer at but his own reflection. Boba always appreciated that about the prisoner cells.

He came to a standstill when he saw the shiny beskar helmet laying, discarded, on the deck. It stuck his heart in his throat did a moment. He shook away the sand from his peripheral vision and stopped to pick it up.

Cara was already strapped into the passenger seat, watching everything with a detached worry that Boba didn’t like. There was nothing about this situation that he liked. “He went up to your bunk,” she said, not looking up at him. He wondered if she had looked down when Din had walked through. If she had looked away on the bridge, if she had kept her eyes ahead when walking through the cruiser.

He didn’t know if he actually wanted to know.

“Great.”

“Fennec’s gonna take us to a New Republic base.”

“Perfect.”

“I’ve got first watch on Gideon. He tried offing himself on the bridge.”

“Of course he did.”

“The others not coming?”

“Absolutely not.” He hit a button on his vambrace and reveled in the satisfaction that he didn’t need to manually operate much on the Slave I anymore. The ship, the armor, Boba, they were one. Jango’s pride and joy. The cargo hatch closed with a hiss and the thrusters engaged instantaneously, Fennec pulling them into space and as far away from this mess as possible.

Boba hesitated at the intersection past the passenger bay. To the left, down into the berthing area and Din. To the right, up into the cockpit and control.

He turned left, and descended.

The narrow passageway had a persistent flickering light overhead which cast an eerie glow about the space. In the ghost stories older bounty hunters used to tell him as a child just to scare him, they used to mention flickering lights as signs of impending doom.

The sun hadn’t flickered that day on Geonosis.

The suns hadn't flickered that day on Tatooine.

Yet the old fear remained.

The ship gave a familiar lurch into hyperspace and Boba swallowed the fear, ignoring his pounding heart in favor of whatever lay beyond that door. Boba removed his helmet before opening the door to his berthing.

Two helmets in hand, he entered, finding Din had gotten into the few bottles of spicewine they’d brought with them from the Core world safe house. His eyes were hard but unfocused, his cheeks ruddy but dry. He looked ill, Boba thought. The noise of the two helmets touching the shelf was too loud, but neither man commented.

Din was still in full beskar, though it looked worse for wear in places, like his hands had been shaking too hard for him to remove anything successfully. So now he sat, wrapped in beskar yet armorless, on the deck of Boba’s ship.

Boba joined him there, knowing it was as healthy as keeping company with a trilling thermal detonator. The longer he thought of what to possibly say, the longer the silence screamed between them. Din brought the wine back to his lips and drank deeply, uncaring toward the messy blood-red splashes that dribbled past his mouth and onto his chest plate.

Something had changed in Din, a complete shift of his entire person that Boba hadn’t been there to witness. He knew the word for what it was, but it never seemed to encompass the variety of emotions that warred with one’s senses. The despair. The turmoil. The burning anger. The choking guilt. The merciless reminder that  _ someone isn’t there anymore. _

There were no words that could have filled Boba’s emptiness or put out the wildfire rage scorching his heart, back then. There was no amount of revenge that would have brought Jango back. There was no number of beds he could fall into and believe they were the embrace of another. There was cold, and there was flame, the icy white burning of an old star that had been dying for decades.

Yet, something had changed in himself as well, and he had been around for it but had not been aware of it. In the...fuck, it had been just less than a month, since the refinery mission on Morak—in that time alone, Boba had felt Din move into his orbit, but...no. That wasn’t right either. Boba had moved into  _ Din’s _ orbit. They’d eclipsed one another countless times since then, covering one another in promises they would chase but never fulfill, looks that would never become meaningful glances, touches that would never, ever last. Perigee, apogee, perigee, apogee again. They had phases, and their shine was reaching darkness again, waning crescent.

He had not seen Din at full darkness, that first day back when he was only a  _ distraction. _ It was ironic that the moment Boba could not be around to cast a guiding light on Din, he found himself a weapon made of darkness and could not rid himself of it. He was stuck here with his grief, empty fulfillment and burdensome guilt atop his shoulders, yet Boba orbited him just out of reach. Everything felt just out of reach.

“My father told me once that the first direction most species look for answers is up,” Boba blurted out. The words didn’t stop. “He told me that for all the atrocities borne on any world, they always blamed the stars. Thanked the stars. Asked the stars why. Trillions of trillions of questions throughout time, sent across the galaxy until they realized they could find the answers themselves by looking down at one another. The stars never had any answe–“

“Shut up.”

Boba’s skin prickled a little at the interruption, and he stuttered to a halt, looking over at Din. “What?”

“I said shut up. I don’t want to hear whatever fucking bullshit your father said, I don’t want to hear about the stars or a moon made of crystals or a damned thing you have to say!” Din’s voice had crescendoed into a shout, hoarse and toneless. Formless anger. Misfired plasma beams. “Why didn’t you let her just kill me when she had the chance?!” His eyes spat the same fury his mouth had, and his knuckles were moon-white around the bottle in his hands.

“Din—”

“No. Tell me why.”

Masks were a strange thing in the galaxy. In some cultures they were seen as coy, charming and flirtatious. They covered one’s identity only to be cast aside in a fit of passion. In other cultures they were used to tell stories and fables to children before they learned that evil wore many faces. For many Mandalorians, their mask was a part of their full armor. To hide one's face was to have honor, to be a part of an enduring galactic symbol of warrior ethos and heritage. It was necessary for foundlings to feel accepted, they knew not the face of their fathers because everyone was their father.

Boba Fett knew the face of his father. The entire galaxy knew the face of his father. He wore several masks, hiding parts of himself, of the collective, so deeply inside himself just to feel some sense of individuality among the millions who shared his face. Even after he had recrafted Jango’s helm, there were still cracks in that mask, irreparable from the brash actions of his vengeance. The helmet he had held to his forehead in a  _ mirshmure’cya, _ countless times after that day, it had reflected that first mask back at him, showing the burning anger in his eyes. It had frightened him into doing something he regretted. When that anger had exploded, it had also taken one of the few pieces of his father he had left. He would reforge a new helmet, but the mask he wore constantly was now another gift from Jango: the gift (curse) of his face.

He saw his father’s anger and judgment and disappointment staring back at him, everywhere. He avoided mirrors whenever possible for that reason. For years, Boba only smiled at death, hedonism, sharp shooting. He had forgotten the easy laughter of his youth, the carefree smiles at his father’s fancy flying in their  _ Firespray- _ class ship. He hid those joyful parts of himself and let the prophecy fulfill: he became Jango as he was remembered.

A ruthless. Deadly. Fanatical. Bounty hunter.

Nowhere in there was the term  _ Mandalorian. _ He could not wear a heritage, he could not gain honor through hiding his face, he could not ascend to the heavens nor pursue a normal life in the galaxy.

(Among other reasons, one of the biggest was that clones were not legally classified as people, after all.)

There was still that crack in the mask, though, that little fissure that wouldn’t melt into submission, that tiny fracture that spidered out under pressure. And when Din had come to him that day and blurted out “I need a distraction,” his clever hands had pried the careful edges of that fault line apart, and wriggled themselves deeper, reaching for the next mask to tear apart on Boba.

It was a ripping noise Boba always heard, when Din would cry or when Din would kneel or when Din would blush and smile and pull smiles and praise helplessly from Boba’s lips. The infiltration of the other masks had been surgically precise, and completely unintentional.

So why, why wouldn’t Boba let Bo-Katan kill him for the stupid lasersword of Mandalore?

“Because I love you, Din.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to be clear, unsolicited concrit is not welcome.

**Author's Note:**

> Will I ever return to the Witcher fandom? Nah
> 
> [Tumblr](https://kaermorons.tumblr.com/)


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